


star to every wandering bark

by hatrack



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Family, Fluff, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-07-29 11:25:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16263227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatrack/pseuds/hatrack
Summary: She daydreams about it, sometimes: how her shade of deep red would look on Debbie’s skin. Wonders what would happen if she went up to Debbie, placed her palm on Debbie’s cheek, and leaned in. She gets a possessive thrill out of imagining her color along Debbie’s jaw. Proof that she exists. That she matters to someone.In this daydream, she pictures an identical red across her palm: the red that would mark her as Debbie’s, and Debbie’s as hers. The red that would mean they were soulmates.





	1. debbie & lou: red

Lou Miller has not had a home in ten years, and that’s just fine with her. 

When she was eight, she left the orphanage in Canberra and stowed away on an enormous ship, sleeping in an empty shipping container and stealing scraps from the kitchen, and she’s been traveling ever since. Mostly she sticks to the continental U.S., with some notable detours into Vancouver and Mexico City. 

Paradoxically, she feels safest in American cities: they’re sprawling, chaotic, and utterly disinterested in the fates of homeless children. She can get away with anything. 

She picks pockets and shoplifts the small shit—meals, clothes, lighters—and every now and then she plans out a robbery or con to get something bigger: money for a fake ID, then money for plane tickets. A suit that fits her properly. A good phone, though she doesn’t have anyone to call. 

She likes being a drifter, and she likes being alone. She tells herself that that’s why she has so few soulmarks: she’s just not destined for meaningful relationships. 

There’s the pale yellow handprint of her mother’s first touch on her side, the slightly deeper blue of a social worker’s fingers on her shoulder, the faint orange on her knee of the creep who sold her the fake, and—brightest, most pronounced—the lavender mark on her elbow of her first and only friend at the orphanage. 

At the age of six, they’d promised not to leave each other behind; promised that, if anyone tried to adopt one, she’d insist on the other’s adoption as well. They told everyone who would listen that they were sisters, and it wasn’t a lie, because if someone stood up for you and saved cookies for you and played with you every day—that was a sister, right? And sisters shouldn’t—couldn’t—be separated. 

So, when Cate was adopted, Lou ran away. At first it was about trying to find her, and then it was about getting away from the orphanage, and then it was about getting away from everyone. Eight years old and all alone, she realized that the way to prevent people from letting her down was to never give them the chance to. 

(Ten years later, she knows that Cate had no power in the situation, that she couldn’t have brought Lou with her if she tried. But she doesn’t know if her mother had always planned to give her up, or if she had laid a hand on her daughter and learned, through the weakness of the soulmark left, that she was not destined to be more than a passing character in her child’s life. 

It’s easier to imagine her mother as a teenager, as frightened as Lou pretends not to be, leaving her out of desperation. She doesn’t want to think that she might’ve had a choice). 

So she wears boots and leather pants and jackets everywhere. Puts on gloves when she fights, and doesn’t shake hands. Every person but one who has touched her has given her faint colors or nothing at all, and it’s too painful to hope that one day someone might touch her and leave a stain. That one day, someone might stay.

 

The first words Debbie says to Lou are: “I have a proposal for you.”

Lou doesn’t bother glancing up from her cigarette. She doesn’t know this girl who’s joined her without an invitation, and she doesn’t like it when strangers talk to her—even when they’re gorgeous. It’s been a long day, she came out into the cold, dark alley for some peace and quiet, and she’s not interested in indulging the whims of some daddy’s girl.

Unless those whims include calling her Daddy, of course. 

“Buy me dinner first, sweetheart,” Lou says, and flicks ash onto the cobblestones. 

The girl laughs. “I can get you dinner, but I won’t promise to pay for it.” 

Lou scoffs, looks her up and down. She’s got long loose hair, perfectly applied lipstick, and a sheath dress just simple enough to show how expensive it really is. 

“What, you’re going to bat your lashes into—”

The girl casually lifts her hand and begins thumbing through a wallet. Lou’s wallet. 

Lou feels inside her jacket. 

“You little—”

“Now, now, Louisa,” the girl says, patronizingly. “Language.”

“Don’t call me that,” Lou snarls, grabbing for her wallet. But the girl dodges, and laughs again. 

“I’m Debbie,” she says, and tosses her the wallet. “What’s your real name?”

Lou’s distracted, making sure Debbie hasn’t taken anything else. But her cash is still there. 

“What?”

“This is clearly fake,” Debbie says, waving the ID. “Real name?”

Lou eyes her for a moment. She’s pretty sure she could take her—Debbie’s a few inches shorter than her, and not dressed for fighting. But she’s also sneakier than she looks, and what if she has a blade strapped to her leg or something?

Not that she’s thinking about Debbie’s legs. Or her lips. Or her hair, and how it might feel between Lou’s fingers as Debbie’s legs spread for her and her red lips part, as she moans, sighs, gasps—

“Lou,” she says. 

“As in Louisa Miller?” 

“Unfortunately.”

“Why would you put your real name on a fake ID?”

Lou shrugs. “Sentimentality?”

It’s true. When she left Australia, she didn’t have much, but she had her birth certificate, a sweater stolen from the orphanage and a small kangaroo figurine given to her by a tourist lady who seemed to think that giving her money or food was out of the question, but that a little toy would somehow help. It was dumb, but Lou held onto it—until her purse, and all her worldly possessions, were stolen on the street when she was twelve. 

The kangaroo was stupid and the sweater was itchy, but she can’t remember her mother’s name, and there is now no earthly proof that she exists. 

Other than her clearly fake ID, which bears her legal name, and which is currently being held between the manicured nails of a very confusing girl. 

Then Debbie smiles, and Lou’s heart jumps. 

“Lou, then. I have a proposal for you.”

Lou holds out her hand. Debbie places the ID in her palm, carefully not touching her. 

Lou has to hand it to her. It isn’t easy to pick her pocket.

“All right,” Lou says. “I’m listening.” 

 

Debbie’s plan is clever: just complex enough to be elegant, just simple enough to work. 

She explains it to Lou over cocktails at a nearby bar in a quiet, nonchalant voice: she wants to rob an upscale, old-fashioned restaurant that keeps their earnings in a safe, only emptying it at the end of the month. Phase One—of Five—involves them both posing as customers dining alone. Debbie will specifically ask for dietary information, then pretend to have an allergy attack. While everyone’s attention is occupied, Lou can snag the key to the safe from the manager, duplicate it quickly, then replace it. 

Lou sips her cocktail. It’s too sweet for her taste, but it’s got three shots in it, so she drinks it without complaint. 

The truth is, she doesn’t need to know Debbie’s whole plan to trust her. In the thirty minutes that they’ve known each other—well, that Lou’s known Debbie; Debbie apparently has been watching her for some time—Lou has already concluded that Debbie is blazingly intelligent, with a sharp eye for observation and a real skill for strategy. Plus, she’s an excellent actor with an unthreatening façade that seems to have been nailed into place by years of practice. 

So Lou stops listening, and starts looking. 

She’s never considered partnering up with anyone. Between her abandonment issues and the overall caliber of the few criminals she interacts with, there’s never been a good reason to. She can scrape together enough money to get by on her own, and she doesn’t need companionship, never has. She’s doing just fine. 

And yet. 

There’s a girl sitting in front of her who’s as smart as she is beautiful; who’s as skilled as Lou, maybe more so; who wants to work with her. Because she thinks Lou’s worth it. 

Debbie finishes her speech, and drinks the rest of her cocktail in one gulp. Then she looks Lou in the eyes, and her stare burns through her brain, drops down deep into her stomach, sends a shot of adrenaline straight to her heart. 

“You in?” Debbie asks, and Lou is nodding almost before she’s finished the question. 

They don’t shake on it. There aren’t many marks on Debbie’s bare arms and shoulders, which is rare for adults: just a lime green mark on her neck, which Lou later learns is from her brother Danny, and the deep navy blue of a few fingerprints on her shoulder, from her father. 

It soothes Lou, somehow. The idea that Debbie is also untouched. 

At any rate, it tells her that Debbie won’t ever infringe on her space, physical or otherwise, and that’s all she needs to know to feel comfortable following her home. 

An hour later, she’s in a small but elegant apartment, facing a bedroom that is now, apparently, hers. For the duration of the con—it’ll take them a few weeks to get it figured out and done—and, if she plays her cards right, maybe longer. 

“Get settled,” Deborah Ocean tells her. “We start first thing in the morning.”

 

Lou doesn’t unpack that night, or ever, really. She’s not sure she knows how: usually she’s squatting in abandoned apartments or houses, and needs to be ready to run. But over time her things scatter from her bag across her room, and then across Debbie’s. 

For the next few weeks, they become virtually inseparable, bonding over their mutual love for strategizing, planning, thinking and overthinking. Lou memorizes Debbie’s five phases, her pages of notes and maps and detailed, specific instructions in the first week, and asks clarifying questions. A few times, she stumbles across an open moment, an opportunity for disaster, and they figure out the solution together. 

They spend hours poring over the plan together, rehearsing—Debbie is very dedicated to the authenticity of her allergy attack—and every so often, Lou looks up to see Debbie smiling at her, a secret, subtle thing that speaks of pride and affection, and something else that Lou can’t quite place. 

When the night comes, they get dressed up together. Debbie lends Lou makeup and a crisp white blouse to go with her suit, and Lou helps zip up her dress, which is long and black, with a slit to show off her legs. They walk out of the apartment arm-in-arm, and for a moment, Lou pretends that she’s taking Debbie on a date to this fancy restaurant for a romantic, candle-lit dinner. 

They’ll sit across from each other and hold hands under the tablecloth, and Debbie will laugh her perfect, mischievous, tinkly laugh, and Lou will be able to feel her heartbeat in her wrists and stomach and tongue, and later she’ll walk Debbie home and brush her long hair out of her eyes before pressing the pulse of her lips to Debbie’s, and—

“Now remember,” Debbie says, in her teacher voice. She adjusts Lou’s collar carefully, taking care, as always, not to brush her skin. “Don’t go to the back room until you’re sure the hostess has left the front—” 

“—because she can see into the back room from the computer,” Lou recites easily, deliberately pushing her daydream out of mind. She can’t get distracted now. Not when all their work is on the line. “I know, honey.” 

Debbie smiles, the blinding one that makes Lou’s throat dry. “I know you know.” 

Then she looks around and checks her watch. “I’m up.” She nods at Lou once, then walks off, and the plan is officially in motion. 

 

The con goes so successfully that in addition to stealing ten grand from the safe, Lou has time to lift a few necklaces and watches as well, and Debbie positively glows when she presents them to her. They order Chinese food to celebrate, and sit on the floor in the living room, eating, drinking red wine out of the bottle, and counting their money. 

“So, I guess I should—” Lou says, when they’ve finished dividing the spoils, sixty-forty, just like they agreed, and the struggling orphan stowaway part of her that’s desperate to survive at any cost might be frustrated by the uneven split were it not for the fact that her share, if ten percent smaller, is still more money than she’s ever seen in her life, ever, and may in fact amount to more money than she’s had in her eighteen years of life put together. 

“What?” Debbie says, leaning against the wall, somehow managing to look good while eating greasy noodles. 

By this point, Lou knows very well that Debbie’s pretty girl act is all part of the ruse—she looks too naïve to shoplift, let alone to plot elaborate cons; hell, it duped her too the first time she saw it—but it still leaves her breathless sometimes, when Debbie flicks her hair, or bites her lip. The makeup, the clothing, the air of wide-eyed innocence are part of the costume she cloaks herself in, but the beauty is all too real. 

Lou shrugs, opens her mouth, closes it again. Doesn’t want to say it, but feels she has to. 

“Should I—go?”

Debbie lowers the carton and eyes her. “If you like.” 

She takes a bite, chews, swallows. “But I’d rather you didn’t.”

She says it flippantly, like she’s pretending not to care, but Lou can tell that she’s pretending by the way she sets her jaw and deliberately relaxes her brows, and the fact that she _cares—_

Lou tries to match her tone. “I’ll stay.”

Then she attacks her own carton, suddenly ravenous. 

 

Lou stays, and it’s good—far better than she ever imagined life, specifically her life, could be. She has never had a family, or a roommate, or a best friend—Cate notwithstanding; she’s ten years gone and Lou dreams about finding her sometimes but it’s too impossible to even hope for—but Debbie is a strange combination of everything movies taught her about what those things could be. 

They plan another con, and another; and Lou learns to not think too much about Debbie’s smile, her quick hands, the long line of her body when they’re running, her breath in the darkness beside her. The mornings when Debbie comes into the kitchen, hair tousled and eyes warm, and Lou hands her a coffee mug, and Debbie gives her this sleepy smile that just melts her insides into mush. 

Lou Miller has not had a home in ten years, and she’s not planning on losing this one.

And still, they don’t touch. It’s more instinctive than anything else, Lou thinks, because at this point it’s inevitable that they’ll leave bright marks on each other: they’ve spent too much time together for faint colors. 

She daydreams about it, sometimes: how her shade of deep red would look on Debbie’s skin. Wonders what would happen if she went up to Debbie, placed her palm on Debbie’s cheek, and leaned in. She gets a possessive thrill out of imagining her color along Debbie’s jaw. Proof that she exists. That she matters to someone. 

In this daydream, she pictures an identical red across her palm: the red that would mark her as Debbie’s, and Debbie’s as hers. The red that would mean they were soulmates. 

Lou always shakes the idea off, feeling embarrassed, a little guilty. Debbie is her best friend, her roommate, her literal partner in crime. They live together, work together, eat and laugh and shoplift nail polish from CVS just because they can together. It’s enough. 

It has to be enough. 

 

One day, a heist goes wrong. Lou’s not sure how it happens—they always check and double check and triple check their plans, going over them for weeks in advance. They may be eighteen, but they’ve been in this business for years already, and they’ve never yet had a con fail. 

But there’s a first time for everything. Lou’s standing at a blackjack table in a casino that she’s not old enough to be in when she hears sirens. 

It’s not unusual for their part of town, but she feels a thrill of unease ripple down her spine, thinks: _Debbie. Find Debbie._

She doesn’t bother grabbing her jacket from the table, even though it’s one of her favorites. (She took it off to prove there was nothing up her sleeves, at the insistence of the dealer, who couldn’t understand how a lanky Australian girl was winning so frequently; and she decided not to point out that there could just as easily be cards in her pant pockets). 

She just runs out of the room and into the maze of dark hallways. _Debbie. Find Debbie._

She’s running and it’s dark and she can’t see Debbie anywhere, she’s bumping into people, spilling drinks, probably attracting too much attention but she can’t begin to care, frantic and breathing hard, because what if something happened, something serious, what on earth would she do without Debbie—she keeps running, searching desperately, and then—

A shape melts out of the darkness and says, “This way!” 

Lou stops, shocked. “Deb—”

“Come on!” Debbie hisses, and grabs her arm, and then they’re outside and running hard, and the cold air tastes like relief on Lou’s tongue. 

 

They take the long way home and run all the way there, just to be safe; the sirens don’t seem to have followed them, but they’re not taking any chances. 

They sprint up the stairs to their apartment— _Debbie’s_ apartment, Lou catches herself too late, it feels like theirs but it’s _Debbie’s_ —and Lou hurriedly unlocks the door while Debbie watches the street like a hawk, ready to pull a blade if necessary. They get the door open and get inside, slam and lock the door. 

Debbie collapses into a chair while Lou flips on the light, then leans against the door, panting for breath. 

“My God, that was a rush,” she says, almost to herself. She laughs, burying her face in her hands. “What the fuck happened?”

When Debbie doesn’t respond immediately, Lou looks up. Debbie is staring at her, open-mouthed. Her eyes are wide, filled with shock, and with something that looks almost like joy. 

“What?” Lou looks down at herself. “What’s—” 

She sees her bare forearm. Or, more accurately, she sees her forearm, which is bare except for a handprint in the place Debbie grabbed her while they were running. Lou’s exact shade of red, deeper, brighter than she’s ever seen it. 

Lou’s shade of red, from Debbie’s hand. 

Lou looks up and sees that hand, the palm and finger pads the same bright red; sees Debbie’s eyes, glowing and warm and a little damp. 

“Lou,” Debbie says, hoarse, a shudder of breath—

And then Debbie’s palm is on Lou’s cheek, her body pressing Lou back into the door, and they’re kissing, and the last piece falls into place. 

Lou Miller has finally come home.


	2. constance & amita: purple

(The first thing Debbie does after she gets out of jail is head to the mall. She needs to stock up on perfume, and it doesn’t hurt her ego to remember how easily she can con her way into a four-star hotel room. It makes her feel like herself again. 

The second thing she does is head to Lou’s. 

They spend roughly two full days— _Days 2-3 of Freedom,_ thinks Debbie, who has become accustomed to mentally tallying time—completely naked in Lou’s warehouse. All they’re doing is sleeping, eating and fucking: clothes just get in the way. 

During meals, or in between orgasms, or as they’re falling asleep, they update each other. They agreed it was too dangerous for Lou to write or visit while she was in jail, since Lou’s record is clean and she doesn’t need the hassle of being associated with criminals. Lou tells her about the club, about the people who work there, the regulars, the watered-down vodka, and Debbie loves the pride in her words, in the shine of her eyes. 

Debbie tells her about jail, a little. It’s difficult to get the words out. She’s never been one to talk about feelings, and she’s spent almost six years not talking about anything to anyone, and—Lou’s always been there. She never had to explain anything. Lou just knew. 

But Lou doesn’t know about jail, and she doesn’t know about Debbie’s experiences there; and Debbie may be stubborn, but she is also ruthlessly practical. Lack of communication creates distance. And she will be damned before she allows herself to become someone Lou doesn’t know. 

So she tells Lou bits and pieces. When it comes to mind. When she’s able to. When Lou asks. 

She tries.

It’s enough.

 

At the end of the second day, Debbie sees stars as she cries out her fourth orgasm in a row and slumps back against the pillows. Sated, exhausted and a little dazed, she watches as Lou props herself up on her elbow, still lying between Debbie’s thighs, and licks at her palm. 

She’s smirking, smug as always at her talent for making Debbie lose control, and Debbie loves it with a fiery burning passion. Her eyes trace over Lou’s mussed hair to her perfect cheekbones to her sticky fingers, down to her wrist, and—

She knows that color. Whose color is that?

They’ve spent some time going over their new soulmarks. Lou’s second in command at the club, a bright turquoise on her thumb. Debbie’s cellmate two years in, a puce mark in the shape of knuckles on her lower back. Since meeting each other, they’ve both relaxed a little more into touch, but they can both still count the number of meaningful colors on one hand. 

And one of Lou’s new marks—a swipe of bright purple along her wrist, just below the hand that was only moments ago inside of Debbie—looks just like the purple on Debbie’s collarbone. 

Once she’s caught her breath, she catches Lou’s hand and kisses it.

“Did you need Amita for a job?” Debbie asks, remembering her first time at the jeweler’s, when Amita had leaned in for a closer look at the necklace she was wearing. She’d raised her hand to touch one of the gems and grazed Debbie’s chest, immediately began apologizing profusely, then stopped, startled by the brightness of the red mark on her hand. 

“Well,” Debbie had said, a smile spreading slowly across her face. “It looks like we’re going to get along.”

Lou’s brow creases. “No. Why?” 

“Then where’d you get that mark from?”

Lou looks down at her wrist, then lays it on Debbie’s chest. Debbie’s right: the shades are identical, and equally bright. 

“Amita’s mother will be so disappointed,” Lou says, laughing quietly. “All those times she’s told Amita to hurry up and get married, I don’t think this is who she had in mind.” 

“Who is it?”

“A girl running three-card monte in the park. Name’s Constance,” Lou tells her, dropping a kiss on the mark on her collarbone, then burrowing her head into Debbie’s neck. “I was going to tell you about her, anyway. Thought she’d be the right pickpocket for the heist.”

Debbie stares. “Are you serious? I was planning on bringing Amita on for the jewels.”

Lou smiles against her skin. “Fate is a funny thing.” 

“Do you think we should tell them?”

“Outright? What would be the fun in that?” 

“Well, we can’t just let them find out on their own. Sexual tension is so distracting. They need to fuck before the heist or they’ll be useless once they see each other dressed up.”

“You’re right,” Lou agrees, reaching for the strap-on and lube on the bedside table. “Best to get that out of the way.” 

Debbie grabs the harness from her hands. “Your turn, honey,” she says, flipping them over and pinning Lou’s hands above her head. “Be a good girl for me, and I just might let you suck me off.” 

Lou moans, raw and quiet, and then her mouth is on Debbie’s again, and they leave the issue of Constance and Amita’s purple marks for a while in favor of creating their own).

 

Generally, Constance doesn’t like partnering up on jobs. It’s less about trust—although she doesn’t tend to trust other criminals, why would she, they’re _criminals_ —and more about numbers: the more people that are involved, the more people she has to protect, and rely on to protect her. No, when it comes to danger, she’d rather only have to worry about herself. If she gets hurt, it’s her own damn fault, and that’s all there is to it.

But when Lou approaches her about potentially working a bigger heist—she won’t say exactly what it is, just that it would take seven people and she’d make bank—she reconsiders this policy, for a few reasons.

First off, she’s worked with Lou before, and those jobs have always gone perfectly smoothly. Lou’s the definition of an honorable thief: she’ll con anyone and everyone, except for the people she’s currently allied with. And if Lou trusts the other people on the team, Constance supposes she can trust them, too. 

Second, the risk to reward ratio of working the park has become less inviting. Three-card is reliable, but it doesn’t pay much, and the collection of switchblades she’s stolen from marks just in case they get any funny ideas is growing faster than her bank account. Lou’s heist might be dangerous, but she’s pretty sure she won’t have to worry about getting stabbed. 

Finally, she just likes Lou. Not like in a gay way—Lou might be fine as hell but she’s also got a soulmark on her forearm that’d be visible from the sun, and when Constance asked about her partner, she got this distant look in her eyes and said, “She’ll be back soon, I hope,” and Constance doesn’t really know what the fuck that means but Lou’s clearly not interested in a side gig. 

Still, they’re friendly, maybe even friends, and the marks they left on each other when Constance stole her watch for the very first time—a purple graze along Lou’s wrist, a red blur on Constance’s pinky—are bright. They’re meant to be in each other’s lives. And while Constance knows perfectly well that that’s not always a good thing, and even soulmates sometimes kill each other, she thinks Lou is one of the good ones. 

So she says yes. It’ll be fun, she figures. And networking is always good. Meeting like-minded professionals and shit. Making connections. 

 

Lou says she has to drop everything else for the next month to focus on this, so she gets her affairs in order. Which mostly just means letting her mom know that she won’t be able to help out in the restaurant or make deliveries or anything, and making sure her skateboard’s in peak condition, because she’s not gonna risk one of her wheels cracking and sending her flying into traffic when she’s riding in from Queens. The day before they start, she goes to the gym, does laundry, and falls asleep early. Like a real adult person. She’s so impressed with herself. 

Then she walks into the loft, and sees this girl, and curses herself for not going out the night before and getting laid, because _wow,_ it has been too long for her to be spending the next few weeks cooped up with someone _that_ attractive who she’s not allowed to fuck. Or at least she assumes she’s not allowed to fuck her. Distractions and all.

The girl introduces herself as Amita. Her voice is high and cute but her eyes are steely, and her hair is gorgeous, and Constance is so not paying attention to Debbie’s little lecture, she’s gonna need to steal someone’s notes later. 

Lou catches her staring at Amita, and winks, and Constance glares at her. Damn Lou and her bright red soulmark and her absurdly hot soulmate. Fuckin’ happy bitches.

 

The day just keeps getting worse.

Not the heist part. The heist part is fine. It’s totally sick, actually—Debbie is clearly some sort of criminal mastermind, and they’re all gonna make a buttload of money, and half of Constance’s brain is sorting through what exactly she’s gonna do with it. Get a better apartment, obviously. Give a bunch to her mom so she can get recyclable all-natural containers and a social media consultant, and attract all the hipsters, and be famous. Maybe she’ll go back to school, even. Being a criminal is more fun and a lot less responsibility than being a surgeon, but she had been kinda excited to, you know, help people. Save lives. That kinda thing.

The other half of her brain is obsessively watching Amita, who, as it turns out, is funny and smart and nice in addition to being super gorgeous, and honestly? That’s just not right. 

Constance is pretty sure she’s straight, too. Debbie asks about Amita’s family, who she’s apparently super tight with, and Amita rolls her eyes and launches into a tirade about her mom, who watches over her shoulder in the shop and talks constantly about her three sisters who are all married and why aren’t you married, Amita? 

Debbie laughs.

“Yeah, how is the love life going, babe? Any secret boyfriends?”

Amita gives her a nasty look. “No, unfortunately, and thank you so much for bringing that up. I hate men.” 

“There are other options,” Lou says, draping an arm around Debbie’s shoulders as she sits down on the couch. 

Amita rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to convert me with your gay agenda, Miller.” 

Constance can think of a few other things with which to convert Amita, mainly her fingers and tongue. But no. Apparently she’s not interested. 

It’s disappointing, but Constance has seen a lot of beautiful girls in her time, and she vows to deal with it maturely. By which she means, she gets herself off thinking about Amita five times that night, and then resolves to be courteous, professional and distant. 

 

Unfortunately, Amita doesn’t seem to get the memo. Two days later, when she finds out that Constance also works in her mom’s store, has several older sisters and is first gen, she insists on trading horror stories. Since Debbie has for some unknown reason sent them on a ridiculous lengthy errand to fucking Brooklyn of all places, just the two of them, no other distractions, Constance has to comply. 

And it’s—good. It’s so good. Amita gets everything she’s saying almost before it’s out of her mouth, and she has this perfect laugh that makes Constance’s spine tingle. They commiserate about their families: Constance tells her about the dabs of color on her cheek, deep gold and clementine orange from her sisters, who deliberately decided to mark her as visibly as possible when she was born, and Amita shows her the silver mark under her chin, tells her about her father, who died two years ago. 

“Just out of nowhere,” she says, “in his sleep,” and Constance buries her fists in her pockets against the urge to take her hand. 

They end up talking for hours, because one train line is down and another is running really slowly, and normally Constance would be pissed about that, but there’s this girl sitting next to her, and she doesn’t want the day to end. 

She walks slower than usual on the way home, to keep Amita talking just a bit longer. When they’re about five minutes away, Amita checks her phone and groans.

“I totally forgot, I’m on dinner duty tonight,” she says. They’ve been taking turns cooking, at Tammy’s insistence. The night before was Constance’s turn, and she took care to bitch about it all day, then made dumplings (“not fake Americanized Chinese dumplings, you hear me, the real shit”) from scratch. She brushed off compliments, but was secretly very pleased that they liked her mom’s recipe, and texted her to let her know. 

Constance hip-checks her. “What, didn’t your mom teach you how to cook?”

Amita elbows her back. “Yeah, and I’m good at it too, you little elf.”

“You’re literally like two inches taller than me.”

“Three, I think.”

“Close enough.” 

“I am an _excellent_ cook,” Amita continues, undeterred. “Just don’t like it. Too many memories of my mother, I think.”

And Constance knows she should say “Sucks to suck” and move on, but—

“Wanna know a secret?” slips out of her mouth. Stupid mouth. 

Amita looks amused. “You’re actually four ten, you’ve just been wearing heels?”

“No. Fuck you.” Constance sticks her nose in the air. “I— _enjoy_ —cooking.” 

“That’s the stupidest secret I’ve ever heard,” Amita says, unimpressed. “Why’d you try to get out of it yesterday, then?”

“It ruins my image. Duh.”

Amita laughs. “Oh, right, cause you’re so tough.”

Constance pops her collar and winks at her. “Damn right.”

Amita looks away, and coughs, and the reminder twinges through Constance— _straight._ Right. No flirting. 

Constance clears her throat. “So, anyway. If you want me to cook instead. I’m down. Whatever.” 

“Really?” Amita sounds delighted, and it kind of makes Constance’s heart rise and sink at the same time, which is impossible and dumb. “That would be so great.”

“Whatever,” Constance repeats, ignoring her dumb heart. “I’m gonna tell them you begged me.”

“Oh, yeah. Those dumplings were good, dude. Can you make real fortune cookies, too?”

“Man, those aren’t even Chinese,” Constance says, all ready to launch into her speech about Americanized Chinese food history. “Those were invented by immigrants in California in—”

But Amita is laughing, and turning to look over her shoulder as she unlocks the door to Lou’s warehouse, and saying, “I know, babe,” and frankly—

Constance just came here to have a good time, stealing jewels and shit, and she’s honestly feeling so attacked right now. Straight girls are the worst. 

 

(Once Constance and Amita have both been recruited and are living in the warehouse with the rest of the team, Debbie figures it’ll be easy. She and Lou keep their marks covered up: with the right shirts and jackets, it’s not hard, and they want them to figure it out in the moment. After all, they know from personal experience what an adrenaline rush it is, to touch someone and realize that you belong to them and they to you. That you’ll be together forever. 

Debbie looks for ways to push them together. She thinks of errands to send them on: getting food, scouting out the Met, looking for tools for Lou’s bike. They seem to be becoming better friends—Amita has adopted Constance’s meme-talk, and sometimes Debbie literally cannot understand what the fuck they’re saying—but there are no new marks in sight. 

She figures they’re skittish, just as she and Lou were. Constance runs street heists, wears flannels that hide as much skin as possible, and can barely keep still. Amita is clearly itching to get on with life outside of the family business, and Debbie’s pretty sure that that involves an elaborate daydream about running away to France. Neither of them are really looking to make best friends here. 

Plus, Debbie thinks Amita might not know she’s queer yet, which makes things slightly more complicated. But if anyone can turn a girl gay, it’s Constance).

 

Constance is going to kill Debbie. First she sends them on ridiculous errands, claiming that everyone else is busy and they need to get out of the house, which, first of all, if anyone needs to get out of the house, it’s Rose, because homegirl lives in a dreamworld, swear to god. And now this. 

Amita saunters into the kitchen, wearing a loose tank top knotted at the waist that shows off her shoulders. 

“You ready?”

She bends down to pick up the cleaning supplies Debbie left on the floor, and Constance can see down her shirt, just a little. Enough to make her blush, and think about things she shouldn’t think about, and blush deeper. Which is ridiculous, because Constance is a baller. She doesn’t _blush._

She swallows down her thoughts, snaps on a pair of rubber gloves, and says, “I was born ready.” 

They divide up tasks, which makes it easier to not look at Amita. She scrubs dishes and countertops, sweeps and mops, all while singing along to Amita’s playlist of bops, which turns out to be mostly 80’s disco music. Sometimes Amita stops with her work to dance in the middle of the kitchen. They squirt bubbles at each other, which turns into a water fight, which turns out to be a very bad idea on Constance’s part. She curses her competitive nature silently, and tries not to stare at Amita’s boobs through her damp t-shirt. 

It takes them almost two hours. With seven women of varying ages and levels of maturity living there, the kitchen had deteriorated at an alarming rate. When she comes in to thank them, Debbie promises that she and Tammy are going to make a chore wheel to ensure that everyone chips in regularly so that this doesn’t happen again. Amita sighs in relief, and goes back to reshelving the cans she took out of the pantry to clean it properly. When her back is turned, Debbie winks at Constance, and turns on her heel before Constance can protest. 

Like there’s anything she can say. Clearly, Debbie and Lou have decided to torture her, and she’s just going to have to deal with it. Maybe it’s a weird initiation rite or something? Is she going to get knighted at the end of this? 

She should see if she can lift some armor from the Met, too, while she’s at it. 

 

Despite all the time she inadvertently spends with Amita, it takes Constance more than a week to place her scent. It’s soothing and invigorating at once, spicy and warm and homey, and Constance absolutely loves it. Not like in a gay way, just in a nice-smell way. 

And maybe a little bit in a gay way. 

She’s sprawled on a couch, staring into space and shuffling her cards and not thinking about anything, just listening to Nine tap on her computer, Tammy and Debbie reviewing plans upstairs, and vaguely aware of Amita somewhere behind her. Amita, who’s gorgeous and perfect, who smells like—

“Chai,” she breathes, too quiet for anyone else to hear. 

“Hmm?” 

For a second, she wonders if she should hold back this particular observation, just a little too specific, too intimate, to be normal. But then again, Amita has already seen her crash her skateboard at least seven times, listened to a rap that she wrote when she was like thirteen—she still hasn’t figured out how to get Nine back for that, but rest assured, she will—and watched her eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting. She knows Constance is weird.

“You smell like chai,” Constance says proudly, twisting around to face Amita. “I finally figured it out.”

Amita rolls her eyes, fondly. “You’d have figured that out a long time ago if you ever woke up before noon.”

“Nothing good ever happens before noon,” Constance retorts instinctively. Then she processes Amita’s words. “Wait, what happens before noon?”

Amita smiles. “I make chai.”

“From scratch?” 

“Duh.” 

“The good shit,” Nine says. 

Constance gapes at her for a moment. 

“How come Nine got chai and I didn’t?”

“Because she was up before noon, when I was making it,” Amita says. “Keep up.” 

“So all I gotta do is get up before noon—and I get chai.” 

“Hope your hands are faster than your brain,” Nine says. “Otherwise we’re never gonna pull this thing off.” 

Constance flips her off. “I just wanna be sure, okay, this is a big fuckin’ deal.” 

“Yes, Constance,” Amita says, smiling at her. “If you get up by noon, you get chai.” 

“Done,” Constance says, and immediately curls up for a cat nap. She needs her ten hours one way or another, and god knows she won’t be going to bed any earlier. 

 

It takes her three tries. On the first day, she sleeps through the four alarms she set, then wakes up at one and tears downstairs to find the house empty. On the second day, she snoozes the alarms, and gets to the kitchen at 12:15 to find Amita putting her supplies away. Constance bats her lashes at her, prepared to beg, but Amita holds up a hand.

“Stop. Hard no. And turn down your alarms, for fuck’s sake, we can hear them from down here.” 

Constance pouts all the way back up the stairs to her room, where she promptly collapses into bed and falls back asleep.

But on the third day, she has the brilliant idea of setting the first alarm for ten, which means she has a solid hour and a half to wake up slowly. She charges downstairs at 11:50, yelling, “Ayyyyy, look who’s here!” 

Tammy, Lou and Debbie are drinking coffee on the couch. Nine is curled in a corner as usual, but with a mug instead of a blunt. And Amita is in the kitchen, slowly pouring tea into Constance’s favorite mug. 

Constance sprints, almost skidding right into her, but veering to the right at the last minute. “Yo, is that mine?” 

Amita nods, pushing the mug towards her and picking up her own. “Proud of you, babe.”

Constance ignores the steam billowing from the tea, and gulps some down immediately. It burns her tongue and throat, but it’s so worth it. 

“Fuck, this is so good,” she gasps, taking another sip, despite her watering eyes. “Mmm. Oh yeah. So good.”

“Get a room,” Nine calls. 

Constance moans exaggeratedly, cupping the mug in her hands. “Ohh yeah. Just like that. Get inside me already.” She gulps more tea down, then sets her mug on the counter and looks up to see Amita—blushing?

“Thanks for the tea, man,” Constance says, watching her carefully. “It’s fuckin’ delicious.”

“No problem,” Amita says. She won’t look at Constance, focusing very carefully on putting away the ingredients. 

“Like, so good.” It’s probably nothing, but what if—

“Sooo goooood.” She lets her voice drop, ever so slightly, and yep, Amita is definitely, absolutely blushing. 

A rush of adrenaline goes through Constance’s entire body, and she has to resist jumping up and down. 

Straight girls are, in fact, the worst.

Bi girls who have only ever dated men and aren’t totally out, even to themselves, but who blush when they hear a cute girl in a flannel and beanie moan? 

Perfect. Ideal. Constance’s specialty, in fact. 

 

Every day after that, she sets her alarm for ten, gets up for chai, and makes a point of moaning when she takes her first sip of tea. She can’t do much more than that—for one thing, she doesn’t want to make Amita uncomfortable if she’s wrong and Amita isn’t into her—but Amita blushes every time, and it’s worth every minute of missed sleep. 

 

(It’s been almost two weeks, and Debbie has just about given up on getting Amita and Constance together before the heist. She’s sent them on errands, she’s paired them up for chores—deliberately messy chores, where they’ll get grimy and sweaty and damp. No luck. 

Maybe it’s for the better, Debbie thinks. They’ll definitely hook up after the heist, and there will be plenty of time to fall in love then. And it won’t be long before they begin leaving marks on other people, even if she and Lou manage to keep theirs hidden. 

She needs to stop thinking about it, even though the anticipation is killing her. The only things she should be putting her energy towards are the heist and Lou. Everything else is just a distraction. 

Despite what she tells Lou, though, her investment in Amita and Constance’s relationship has very little to do with sexual tension not ruining the job. Debbie Ocean doesn’t get mushy over a lot of things, but she will never forget the way Lou looked, eyes wide and soft and so, so young, the moment before Debbie kissed her for the first time; and Amita is like a sister to her, Constance too, and she just—wants that for them, okay? Wants them to be as happy as she is. As happy as Lou makes her. 

 

When it finally happens, it’s anti-climactic. Of course. 

Constance pounds downstairs—at 11:40 this time; she’s getting better—and Amita slides her mug over to her wordlessly. 

“Thanks,” Constance says cheerfully, and takes a sip. She moans around the tea, says, “God, you’re good at that,” and Amita blushes, right on cue. 

Lou, who’s sitting at the counter reading the newspaper, snorts. Debbie nudges her hard, and Lou nudges her back before curling an arm around her waist and pulling her in to lean against Lou’s thighs. 

“Ugh,” Amita says, frowning down at her phone. Constance, too busy burning her tongue, just raises her eyebrows. 

“What’s up?” Debbie asks. 

“Do you have any idea how to use Tinder?” Amita asks, not looking up.

Debbie clocks the pained look that crosses Constance’s face for not even a second, and replies, “I met my smoking hot soulmate when I was eighteen, and I was in jail when Tinder happened. So no.” 

Amita grimaces. “I don’t know why I even bother. This is ridiculous.”

“Here,” Constance says, evidently swallowing her pride together with the tea. “I’ll show you.” She turns and leans against the counter beside Amita, looking down at her phone. “See, what you do is—”

Debbie stills Lou’s hand on the newspaper, encouraging her to look up, and they watch with the perfect focus of experienced criminals watching their plan unfold. 

Constance’s hand lifts and passes over Amita’s wrist to touch her phone screen. 

“So, this is the profile, right? And you can either swipe left or right.” 

As she talks, her wrist comes down to press against Amita’s thumb. 

“If you swipe left, it means you don’t like them. And if you swipe right—”

Her hand lifts up, and Debbie can actually see the moment when they spot the marks. Two identical, bright purple marks. The exact same shade. 

Constance looks up first, searching Amita’s face. Amita’s eyes come up, hesitant but sparkling. For a moment, they just look at each other. Amita blushes again, and Constance is smiling, with a look on her face that’s somehow more open and tender than Debbie has ever seen her. 

“So,” Constance says, breaking the spell. “Guess you won’t be needing Tinder.” 

“I guess not.” Amita sounds—hopeful, Debbie realizes, with a sort of tentative excitement. 

Then Constance grins wide, and says, “Hell, yeah!” before wrapping her arms around Amita’s neck, raising on the balls of her feet and kissing her full on the mouth. Amita returns the kiss eagerly, and Debbie and Lou get out immediately, because the sexual tension is about to come cascading down on them and wow, they better make it to a bedroom before it does). 

 

They do, but just barely. Constance has Amita pressed against the counter, then the fridge, then the wall, as they blindly inch their way towards the door. Just as they reach it, and Constance grabs Amita’s hand to drag her upstairs, Amita says, “Wait.”

Constance looks up at her, wrapping her arm around her waist to lean in so close that her eyelashes dust across Amita’s cheek. Amita shivers, seeming to forget what she was going to say, and Constance closes her eyes and inhales. God, she can’t wait to find out if she tastes as good as she smells. 

“What’s up?” Constance asks softly.

“I was just—” Amita swallows, shakily, as Constance decides she’s spent enough time restraining her impulses, and presses a kiss to her jaw. “Do you think we should—talk about this first or—”

Leaning back, Constance nods. “Sure, yeah. We can do that.” She dips her head to kiss the hollow of Amita’s throat. 

“Y-yeah?” Amita squeaks, already losing track of the conversation.

“Yeah.” Constance dips lower, trailing her mouth to the edge of Amita’s V-neck, kissing just above her breast. “You’re just also like the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I’ve wanted you since the moment we met, and I have literally dreamed making you scream for me.” 

She places one final kiss, then grins and steps back, taking her hands off Amita completely. “But yeah. Let’s talk.”

Amita rolls her eyes. Then she grabs Constance’s hand and drags her to her room. Constance’s last coherent thought, before Amita’s door slams shut and her brain short-circuits with the amount of soft warm skin quickly becoming available to her, is: _I’m so lucky._

She says it out loud: “God, I’m lucky.” 

Amita looks down at her, carding her fingers through Constance’s hair, already breathless at the sight of Constance kneeling before her. “What?”

“Lucky,” Constance repeats, then leans forward, and puts her tongue to better use.


	3. daphne & rose: pink

Rose has always had a weakness for beautiful women. When she was young, she thought perhaps it was a trait common to fashion designers: her job, after all, is to spend hours and hours imagining the bodies of models and celebrities, and how to display them to the best advantage. Clothes are an art in their own right, but they’re useless without the right vehicle, and she finds a particular joy in coordinating outfits to the women who wear them, making sure that each element is in balance, none outshining the rest. For years she works with countless models who range the full spectrum from pretty to handsome, elegant to sexy, and she never thinks her appreciation of the female form is anything other than artistic. 

However, she begins to suspect that her fondness for shiny hair and soft eyes, long legs and arching backs extends beyond aesthetic regard the first time she’s commissioned to create a whole wardrobe for an actress. The woman is about to release a few big films expected to garner quite a lot of attention, and needs outfits for interviews, balls and—hopefully—award shows. 

At twenty-five, Rose is a prodigy, the hottest thing to hit New York since Chanel. Or at least that’s what the magazines say. Rose doesn’t believe any of it. She’s skilled, sure, and even she can admit that her designs are gorgeous. But she can’t escape the thought that at heart, she will always be a poor Dubliner with crippling anxiety. She doesn’t deserve to be here, meeting famous people, or walking beside them as they model her clothes; and she’s terrified that soon they’ll all discover she’s a fraud. It’s inevitable, it truly is, and she waits with bated breath. 

But the actress—Helena—greets her warmly, asks about her cats and how she likes New York before she asks to see Rose’s designs. She’s stayed up all night for weeks working on them, and her hands tremble as she passes them over. She ducks her head, swallowing nervously, while the actress peruses them in silence. 

“They’re lovely, dear,” she says, at last, looking at Rose with a twinkle in her eye. “For heaven’s sake, stop quivering. It’s all right.”

Rose tries to speak, can’t muster much more than a hollow “Thank you.” 

“Come here.” She takes Rose’s hand in hers, clasping it close so that Rose has to look up into her face. Excepting the models that Rose hovers over constantly, it’s the closest she’s been to anyone in—well—years. Since she left Ireland, and her family, and any semblance of a normal life. 

“I love your work,” Helena says, reassuringly. “I have complete faith in you. And I can’t wait to get to know you better.” She winks. “Does that help at all?”

She releases Rose’s hand, and Rose gasps. A sapphire mark has bloomed on the back of her hand, bolder than any she’s accrued so far in the States. Glancing up, she finds that her signature mark—the soft pink her mother named her after—has stained Helena’s fingers with equal fervor. 

Rose meets the woman’s eyes, and feels something warm root in her belly, deep and hot and aching.

 

They spend three weeks together, in a small villa in the south of France. It’s all the time the other woman has before jetting off to another filming, and though Rose was initially meant to stay only for a week, Helena tells her to stay as long as she wants. “We’re bonded,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, pointing to their marks and winking. 

In the first week, they’re kept busy by fittings and adjustments, though occasionally they sneak off to go for walks in the countryside. There are meadows of wildflowers and clear rivers, and the weather is perfect, sunny and warm but not hot. They’re standing by the water the first time her host kisses her, and Rose almost falls in. 

“What, haven’t you ever been kissed before?” Helena teases, though she looks proud. 

“Not like that,” Rose says breathlessly, and pulls her in again. 

She takes her to bed before the end of the week, and it’s then that Rose is forced to admit it. All those years of tracing models’ cheekbones in magazines, of picturing women in silk and satin and lace and velvet: she’s a genius designer, yes. But she’s also incredibly gay. 

 

It becomes something of a habit for her, dressing beautiful women for award shows and fashion lines and balls, then undressing them when their work is done. Now that she knows what it’s like to enjoy beauty properly—physically, intimately, thoroughly—desire becomes just another aspect of her artistic sensibility, a part of how she looks at women. 

She would never be inappropriate, or anything less than professional, of course. Her Irish-Catholic mother would have disapproved of her feelings, but she did teach her respect. Over time, though, Rose learns to communicate interest subtly, carefully, and a surprising number of women—famous and not, married and not—reciprocate. 

The affairs rarely last long or mean much, which suits Rose fine; her schedule is busy, and she doesn’t want to risk the professional fallout that could come with being publicly queer. The marks accrue quietly. Most are faint, just dabs of color on her arms, waist and neck. A few are darker, brighter; women she spent more time with, or who she thought she might be able to fall in love with, in another world. 

Eventually, inevitably, there’s one that’s so bright it could be a soulmark, were it pink instead of a deep, fiery orange. For a moment, looking between the mark on her hip and the woman smiling back at her, she considers running. But if there’s one thing Rose knows, it’s that love always catches up to you in the end. 

Five years later, she’s sobbing her eyes out in the apartment they shared before the other woman found her soulmate—her true love, which wasn’t, and could never be, Rose—and she decides she’s done with beauty. She can still be a designer, maybe, but she will never love again. 

She stops sleeping with pretty women. Minimizes the touch necessary to fit a design to a body. Tries not even to look, to think, to want. 

 

So when Debbie and Lou confront her at her awful show—and that’s not just her anxiety talking, thank you kindly, she knows for a fact that her work recently has been genuinely, irrefutably awful—and offer her the chance to dress Daphne Kluger, she honestly doesn’t know if she can do it. 

It’s a fantastic opportunity from all angles: the exposure, the money, the chance to reclaim her reputation. But all of that relies on her ability to create a truly exquisite dress—a dress to match the sheer exuberant glory of the Toussaint, and to balance the ethereal, extraordinary, earth-shaking beauty of the world’s most attractive woman—and to not fall in love with said woman at the same time. 

She says yes, of course. She literally cannot afford to refuse. But she worries. 

 

And meeting Daphne does nothing to assuage her fears. She’s as gorgeous and terrifying in person as she is on screen. Rose watches Debbie and Lou blow bubbles, and imagines herself in one of them, this close to having the floor drop out from under her. 

Astonishingly, she gets through the meeting without messing up too badly, and it’s done. She’s dressing Daphne Kluger for the Met Gala. 

She hasn’t had an opportunity like this in years, and despite her anxiety, it invigorates her. She sketches at three a.m., eats Nutella by the jar and feels—hopeful. She has big dreams for this outfit, and they just may come true; and if they do, she won’t have to go to jail. She likes Debbie and Lou, and Amita, Constance, Tammy and Nine Ball, and if she’s lucky, she’ll be able to stay with them for a while. Over the weeks, they come to feel like a family to her—more of a family than her blood family could ever be. 

Things fall into place. She settles on a design that she thinks will work, begins buying fabric and trying different cuts. Amita and Constance exchange soulmarks, and Debbie and Lou cook up a feast to celebrate, looking smug as anything when the lovebirds stumble out of Amita’s room. The crew has left bright colors on Rose, and received dark pink marks in return; and Debbie’s plan is perfect. 

She’s going to be okay, Rose realizes one night, while stitching a new prototype around midnight. Everything is going to be okay.

Then she meets Daphne for the first fitting, and everything goes straight to hell.

 

It happens while she’s pinning the back of the dress. She likes to leave clothes a little loose the first time so that she can make sure they fit every curve perfectly and experiment with the way they drape. She’s in her head, mentally trying a hundred different possibilities at once, fingers moving without conscious thought over the material—and Daphne moves, reaches for a magazine, and Rose’s fingers stutter and fall against her back. It’s just a moment, a brief touch, and Rose pulls her hand away as if burned. 

“Oops, sorry,” Daphne says, carelessly. “Got bored.”

She glances over her shoulder at Rose, who’s standing there, dumbstruck. 

“It’s okay,” she says, sounding amused. For whatever reason, she seems to find Rose’s absentmindedness charming rather than annoying. “You can keep going, I’ll just read.”

Daphne flips open the magazine and resumes her perfect posture. 

Rose doesn’t move. She feels like she’s just downed three shots of whiskey, neat; like she’s been hit on the head with a hammer; like the world stopped turning, realigned itself, and went tumbling off in an entirely different direction.

There, on the small of Daphne’s back, is the brightest, deepest shade of her pink that she’s ever seen, so dusky it’s almost mauve, so vibrant that it looks petal-soft. The mark is no bigger than a dime; her fingertip must have just grazed her spine. 

And there, on Rose’s fingertip, is the exact same color. A matching pink. A soulmark. 

 

Rose gets through the rest of the fitting in a daze, adjusting and pinning automatically, taking notes, murmuring assent to everything Daphne says, despite the fact that she can’t hear her over the roaring in her ears. For once she’s grateful for her natural spaciness—Daphne doesn’t seem to notice any difference in her, or maybe she’s just chalking it up to her being hard at work. 

At the end of the hour, Rose says her goodbyes, makes plans with Daphne’s secretary to do another fitting same time next week, and goes home. On the subway, the dissociation solidifies into panic. She grips the edge of her seat and tries desperately not to cry.

Some part of her brain, the part still capable of logical thought, remembers that people are generally happy when they find their soulmates. They fall into each other’s arms, kiss, promise to be together forever. Constance and Amita are barely able to be apart for more than an hour these days, and they spend half their time at Lou’s place in one of their bedrooms. 

“Ah, to be young and in love,” Lou had said one day, after Amita and Constance arrived home from the grocery store, dropped the bags on the kitchen counter, and ran upstairs without saying a word to any of the women scattered throughout the living room. Their clothes were already partially off, Amita’s bra clearly undone, Constance’s hair messy and her lips swollen. 

“You and Debbie are still like that,” Tammy had pointed out. It was true: every one of them had caught Debbie and Lou having sex several times already, all over the house and many places outside of it. Rose wasn’t sure if they had no sense of modesty or just didn’t care, and she shuddered to think what Tammy had had to put up with over decades of knowing them. 

“Thank god,” Debbie had said with a wicked grin, walking up behind Lou and pulling her hips around so she could press her into the wall, kissing her deep and lingering. Lou made this mewling sound against Debbie’s mouth, fisting one hand in Debbie’s long hair and cupping her ass with the other, and Debbie’s hands skimmed up Lou’s sides under her blazer to her breasts; and then Tammy had grabbed the water spritzer they used to water the plants and directed it at them, yelling, “Upstairs! Upstairs!” 

Rose wants something like that. Wants to love someone so completely and utterly that everything outside of them would cease to exist. Wants someone to ground her, free her, give her a home. Wants someone to love her as fiercely as she loves them. 

And that’s why she’s crying on a subway train in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday in April: it just does not seem possible that she could ever be enough for Daphne Kluger. 

Daphne is America’s sweetheart, an internationally known film star, an incredibly talented, smart, skilled, beautiful and charming woman. Rose is—what? An aging fashion designer millions of dollars in debt, who has lost not only her reputation but also the creativity that once felt so innate to her. She’s a failure. A train-wreck. 

Even Debbie and Lou know that, she realizes with a shudder, and the shame clogs her throat, makes it hard to breathe. If she wasn’t a failure, she wouldn’t have been suitable for their plan; she wouldn’t have needed them. Everyone else is irreplaceable. She was the bottom of the barrel. 

Daphne can’t possibly love her, and she can’t love Daphne in the way that she deserves, can’t ever be enough. And the team—she can’t stay with them, either. She’ll finish the job, of course—she won’t let them down, not when Debbie’s been planning this for years and they’ve all worked so hard—but after that, she’ll have to go. They’ll be better off without her. She’s always wanted to travel. Morocco, maybe, or Croatia, or Peru. Somewhere far away from her failure and her misery, and everyone she wants to love, but doesn’t deserve.

Luckily, the house is empty when she gets back. Rose locks herself in her room with a jar of Nutella, and cries herself to sleep. 

 

They’ve taken to having dinner together every night, so Rose wakes up from her impromptu anxiety nap to hear Debbie yelling her name. The prospect of getting out of bed, cleaning her face, putting on proper clothes, going downstairs, and sitting through a meal with all of them talking and laughing is unbearable, though, so she just stays where she is. A few minutes later, Tammy comes up with a plate of food and asks through the door if she’s all right. 

“Yes, thanks, just working,” Rose calls back. 

“All right, well, don’t work too hard, okay? Eating is important too, remember.” Tammy’s tone is soft and motherly, and Rose fights the overwhelming urge to open the door and let Tammy hold her while she cries. 

Sometimes Tammy makes tea for her when she’s up late. Nine Ball does, too. Even Constance brings her snacks sometimes. 

They take such good care of her, and she doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve—

“Thanks, love,” Rose calls, and waits for Tammy’s footsteps to fade away before she lets the anxiety overtake her once more.

 

She ends up hiding in her room for a few days. Occasionally, when the house is quiet, she leaves to get food, go to the bathroom, grab more sewing supplies. Once or twice she ventures out when everyone is there, but she makes a beeline for whatever she needs, avoids people’s eyes, says, “Sorry, in a hurry, love,” when someone tries to talk to her. Tammy continues coming to get her for dinner, then leaving her a plate, then berating her when she doesn’t eat it. 

On the third night, the house quiets down around one a.m. Rose is wrapped comfortably in several blankets and beginning to consider going down to grab an apple. She doesn’t remember the last time she ate, and while it’s tempting to just allow herself to waste away, she has work to do. 

A knock sounds at her door. 

“Yes?” Rose says, not moving from her bed. 

“It’s Lou.” Her voice is softer than Rose has ever heard it. “Can I come in?” 

“Busy, love,” Rose says automatically.

“I know.” She sounds faintly amused. “Can you take a break?” 

Rose hesitates. She doesn’t want to talk about anything, unless it’s logistics with the dress, and she has a feeling that Lou wouldn’t be interrupting her in the middle of the night for that. But this is also Lou’s house, and Lou’s partner’s heist, and she doesn’t really feel like she can say no. 

“One minute,” she says. She unwraps herself from the bed and makes it haphazardly, then looks at her room. It’s even messier than usual, because she’s barely left it, and also because she doesn’t have the energy to care about cleaning it. She picks up two pieces of trash, turns on the light, and grabs a pincushion to hold so it looks like she’s been working.

She opens the door. Lou is standing there holding two mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. 

Lou sees her staring at the drinks, and grins. 

“Cadbury drinking chocolate spiked with Bailey’s. Figured us ex-pats have to stick together. Can I come in?”

 

They sit on the bed, and Rose sips her hot chocolate gingerly. It’s delicious, and the Bailey’s is both invigorating and soothing. 

“I wouldn’t really have pegged you as a cocoa person,” Rose says.

“I’m full of surprises.” 

“Clearly.”

For a few minutes, they just drink. But the anticipation is getting to Rose, and while she is enjoying her drink, she does have a busy night of lying in bed and worrying ahead of her. 

“So,” Rose says, trying to sound cheery. “What can I do for you?”

Lou looks at her, searching her face. When she speaks, it’s the same soft tone she first used at the door. 

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve just had a lot of work,” Rose lies. “A lot of ideas. You know how it is. Inspiration strikes, and…”

“And you’re suddenly unable to come down for dinner, or look any of us in the face?”

With some effort, Rose raises her eyes to meet Lou’s, and oh, there’s those eyes, intent and piercing. 

“I’ve been working,” she repeats. 

Lou looks at her for a moment longer, then sighs, turning her gaze on her mug. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Daphne Kluger, would it?”

“What? I—she—what?”

“You’ve been hiding since Tuesday, which is when you had your first fitting.” Lou’s voice has dropped deep in her chest, serious and firm. “Are you having second thoughts?”

The first thing Rose feels is relief. Of course: if she’s acting erratically, she’s a threat to the plan. She wonders briefly what would happen if she really did leave, if they thought she was going to let something slip. Would Debbie or Lou have to neutralize her? She can’t imagine either of them hurting her; but they’ve both had long, illustrious careers in crime, and she knows they would do anything for each other. So that’s that question answered, she supposes. 

The second thing Rose feels is disappointment, and she doesn’t really want to examine that too closely, so she laughs, as if any of this is funny.

“Of course not,” Rose says, as if the idea of running away from it all at the first available opportunity hadn’t been front and center in her mind for the past few days. She waves her hand dramatically, for emphasis. “The fitting just gave me a lot of material to work with, so I’ve just been hiding out, and, well, working, you know how it—” 

But Lou isn’t looking at her anymore. She’s looking at her hand, and its bright pink fingertip, and Rose can see the moment when it all clicks into place.

“—you know how it is,” Rose finishes weakly.

“Yes,” Lou says. “Fate is a funny thing. You didn’t tell her, did you.”

“What?”

“That’s a soulmark,” Lou says patiently, as if Rose didn’t already know. “On your finger. I’m assuming it’s Daphne’s. You got it somehow, accidentally, and you didn’t tell her. And now you’ve just been holed up in here panicking.” 

Slowly, shakily, Rose nods. And then all of a sudden she’s sobbing into Lou’s shoulder, and Lou is rubbing her back and murmuring nonsense into her hair, just “it’s okay” and “let it out” and “I’m here.” 

It lasts only a few minutes—from having spent much of the past few days crying, she doesn’t have too many tears left in her—and when she draws back, Lou offers her a tissue and her hot cocoa wordlessly. 

“Thank you,” Rose says, and blows her nose. “I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s all right,” Lou says, gently. “Why haven’t you told her?”

“I can’t,” Rose croaks. 

“Why not?”

The panic and shame and terror of the past few days rise up in her throat, and she can’t speak. 

After a moment, Lou nods, and sighs. She leans back on Rose’s bed, and for a few minutes they’re quiet. Rose sips her drink, and listens to Lou’s breathing, quiet and regular. 

When Lou speaks again, she’s lying on her back looking up at the ceiling. Her words are measured and careful. 

“Rose,” she says. “Do you know why Debbie went to jail?”

It’s not what she was expecting. She tries to think if she ever heard the whole story. “Something to do with—an art dealer, right?” Rose says finally. “He pinned something on her?”

“Yes. Becker. Some feds were on his trail, and he set her up to take the fall. Rookie mistake, on her part; several, in fact,” she says. “However. Do you know why she was working with him in the first place?”

“No?”

She hears Lou swallow. 

“About six months before Debbie was arrested, we ran a heist that went wrong,” she says quietly. “I’ll spare you the details, but a number of very dangerous people became very angry with us. With Debbie, specifically—she’s always been the mastermind, and they knew that. They knew she had planned it all.

“My guess is some people wanted to take her out directly, but that would’ve been a risky move; they would’ve had the entire Ocean clan and all of their allies on their ass, and they weren’t angry enough, or stupid enough, to incite that kind of war. They just wanted to teach her a lesson, see. Make sure she didn’t mess with them again.

“By that point, we’d been together for years. Decades. Anyone who knew Debbie knew me, and knew—what we were to each other. So they decided to go after me instead.”

Rose’s breath catches, and Lou glances over at her. “Yeah,” she says. “Long story short, they caught me alone, beat the shit out of me, and left me for dead. If a random passerby hadn’t come by a few minutes after they left, I wouldn’t have had a chance. When I got to the hospital, I’d lost a lot of blood, my lung had collapsed, and I had a bunch of broken bones—ribs, arm, jaw, etc.—but I was alive.” 

“My God, Lou,” Rose breathes. “That’s awful.” 

“It was.” Lou stretches her arms out over her head casually. “When Debbie heard, she lost her shit. She came to see me, then she and Danny and Rusty and a few of the others went and—returned the favor, plus some.”

“Did she—”

“Kill anyone? No. Danny might’ve, though. Mostly they just beat the shit out of them, then rigged the place so the guys would get picked up by the police the next day. They’re all in jail now. It was a tactical error, really. They should’ve known better to target a soulmate, particularly one tied to a clan as protective as the Oceans. Say what you will about them, they always take care of their own.” 

Rose is quiet, processing the information. In a moment, Lou continues, voice steadier.

“Debbie made sure I was all right, and that I would heal properly. And then she told me she was leaving.” 

For a moment, Rose isn’t sure she heard properly. “She—what?”

“She left me,” Lou says, and her voice is calm, but Rose can just hear the sadness, the hurt, beneath it. “She said that she thought I would be better off without her. With her as my partner, I would always be vulnerable not only to the people we robbed but to all of the Oceans’ enemies, and all of their allies’ enemies, and so on. She blamed herself for the con going wrong, and for me getting hurt; she thought she should’ve somehow kept me safe. And she thought this was how she could keep me safe in the future. If she wasn’t with me anymore.

“She said, and I quote: ‘I love you, and I’m bad for you, and you deserve better.’” 

“But that’s crazy,” Rose says, the words coming out before she can think about them. “You’re perfect for each other, you’re so—you make each other so happy.” 

“Yup,” Lou says. “We are, and we do. But she got scared, and decided to try loving someone with lower stakes. It was stupid, and it got her ass sent to jail, and I know for a fact that there is nothing she regrets more than the fact that we spent six and a half years apart.” 

Lou sits up and looks Rose in the eye. “Do not mess around with living without your soulmate. I’ve done it, and it isn’t fun. I don’t care what you think of yourself, or what you think of her, or what you think either of you does or does not deserve. Daphne was born to love you and you were born to love her. You don’t need to worry about being enough for her, because you already are.” 

Rose doesn’t know what to say. The sheer amount of soul-baring that has just occurred is stunning, and from Lou of all people. But Lou seems to know she’s gotten the message. She smiles. 

“You probably shouldn’t tell her until after the heist, anyway, just to be safe,” she says. “And for god’s sake, start coming to dinner again. They’ve been growing increasingly raucous without your calming presence.” 

Lou drinks the rest of her cocoa in a gulp, then holds out her hand for Rose’s mug. 

“Good night,” she says. 

“Good night,” Rose replies. Lou closes the door behind herself, and then she’s alone again, with her soulmark, her sewing supplies, and Lou’s words burning like a lamp in her heart. 

 

The remaining weeks pass quickly. Rose holds it together during the next few fittings, despite obsessing over whether Daphne has seen the mark. She thinks not. It’s in a relatively inaccessible place, and surely Daphne would have said something, if she had thought it had anything to do with Rose. She seems forthright enough. 

Rose is already dressed and made up when she goes to help Daphne into her gown. Daphne squeals when she sees her. 

“Oh, you look gorgeous!” she says, kissing her on both cheeks, and touching her flower crown reverently. 

“Th-thanks,” Rose stutters, blushing fiercely. Daphne is wearing a sheer slip, with her hair and makeup fully done, and Rose thinks she’s never seen a more beautiful sight. “I’ll pale in comparison to you.”

“Because you’re a genius designer, yes,” Daphne says, tossing her a wink over her shoulder as she goes to pick up the long, bright pink gown hanging in the closet. “Give me a hand?”

Rose helps her into the dress, then flutters around her for a minute, adjusting, laying the cloth just so. Finally, she steps back and just looks. 

She has to admit it: she did a good job. Daphne looks—resplendent. Majestic. Magnificent. The dress, the Toussaint and Daphne’s own classical loveliness balance perfectly, elevating each other without clashing. 

If Rose hadn’t already known that she was in love with Daphne—had been from the moment she saw her, confirmed by her soulmark—this would’ve convinced her. As it is, she just feels proud. 

“You look—wonderful,” Rose says, after a long moment. “There are no words.”

Daphne preens. “All thanks to you,” she says, turning to admire herself in the mirror. 

“To be fair, I had the perfect muse.”

Daphne giggles. She looks at herself for another moment, then turns back to Rose.

“I want to thank you,” she says. “You’ve really done a beautiful job. And you know, it’s not just—the dress, and the necklace, and everything; I don’t just mean your work for the Gala.”

She takes a step closer to Rose, and there’s this look in her eye, and oh—

“I feel safe with you,” Daphne says. “You make me feel—comfortable, and happy, and safe. You’re—you’re really—” 

And she’s right there, she’s only an arm’s reach away, it would be so easy for Rose to reach out and—

A knock sounds at the door. 

“Miss Kluger?” calls one of the security guards. “Mr. Becker is here.”

Daphne takes in a breath. She smiles at Rose, but her eyes are wet, and Rose has no idea what’s happening but it feels terribly, enormously important.

“You’ve been a really good friend to me,” Daphne says quietly, and then she’s hugging Rose, just a brief squeeze, and moving past her to the door to welcome Claude in.

 

For Rose, the night passes in a blur. She’s grateful that her work is done, that the only thing she needs to do is walk around with Daphne and act relatively normal, because there is no way she could summon the focus for anything more complicated than that. 

First, there’s the rage and grief that well up in her whenever she looks at Claude—for the things that he did to her friends, for the pain he’s caused them. Rose is not, typically, an angry person, but she thinks of the way Lou and Debbie orbit around each other, the way they gravitate towards each other when they’re in the same room. As if to make sure the other person is really there. It’s love, sure, but love strengthened by desperation, by years of suffering. And he did that to them. 

Second, there’s the way Claude and Daphne act around each other. Daphne is an actor, of course, so there’s always a chance that she’s faking it, but she seems completely enthralled by him, twirling her hair between her fingers and leaning into him. They flirt relentlessly, and Rose is pretty sure that they snuck off to make out somewhere at one point, and she realizes that it’s unfair to be jealous when she hasn’t even made her feelings known, but Daphne is hers and that appalling man has no business being in a fifty-mile radius of her. Rose drinks champagne, and sulks. 

Third, of course, is the anxiety. There’s a lot riding on tonight, a lot of people’s futures. She can only hope they pull it off. 

 

They do.

There’s more champagne, more food—from Lou’s truck, mostly—and a lot of cheering and laughing and hugging and kissing.

Rose gets drunk, and at some point she finds herself saying to Amita and Constance, “You know, I’m really going to miss you all.”

They look at her like she’s grown a third eye. 

“What, are you going somewhere?” Amita says. 

“No, well, I mean—” 

Constance laughs. “Good luck getting rid of us,” she says, throwing an arm around them both and pulling them in tight. “We’re never gonna let you go.” 

Rose smiles against Constance’s shoulder, a little watery-eyed, and thanks her lucky stars for the terrible airport show. None of her work has ever made her this happy. 

 

And then.

Daphne walks into the warehouse, and into the crew, and into all of their lives, and Rose can practically hear Lou saying, “Fate is a funny thing.” 

She stays for dinner. Rose can barely look at her. 

After helping with cleanup, Rose makes a beeline for her room and stays there. She doesn’t have a good excuse anymore, though she supposes she could say that the Met Gala provided a lot of inspiration—which it would’ve, if she hadn’t been so distracted. 

There’s a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Rose calls.

“It’s your favorite muse,” Daphne says. “Can I come in?”

When Rose opens the door, Daphne is standing there with two mugs of hot cocoa. “Lou sent me up with these,” she says. “She said you had something to talk to me about?”

Rose internally curses Lou and her meddling ways. “Oh, I—well, come in,” she says, aware that she’s blushing brightly for no apparent reason.

Daphne makes herself at home on Rose’s bed, and for a moment Rose can hardly think. She’s been fantasizing about this for weeks, and it seems like they’re hurtling down that path, but first—

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Daphne’s voice is so quietly, profoundly sad that she almost doesn’t recognize it as hers. 

“I—what?” Rose says, stupidly.

Daphne reaches for Rose’s hand, and rubs her thumb over the mark on her fingertip. She doesn’t look at Rose. 

They’re quiet for a few moments, hot chocolate forgotten. Then Daphne takes a deep breath and says, “Look. I know—I know that I can be a lot. I’m self-absorbed and stubborn and, and, I’m not good at sharing things, like either emotionally or like food, and my life is one big red carpet walk which can be very overwhelming for anyone who isn’t used to being photographed at all times of the day and night, and I just wanted to say—I understand. Okay? If you didn’t want to put up with that. I would understand.”

“If I—” Daphne might understand, but she sure as hell doesn’t. “What?”

Daphne sighs. She still won’t look at Rose. 

“If you don’t want to be with me,” Daphne says, “I get it. I wouldn’t want to be with me, either.”

The realization hits her all at once. That time Daphne had a panic attack when she was worrying about the necklace. How Daphne is completely different from how Rose had imagined her, based on interviews and the stories written about her. And now, finally, Daphne sitting across from her, face downcast, giving her permission to walk away. 

Rose is used to anxiety beating her up, but she will not allow it to attack her loved ones in this way. 

“Daphne,” Rose breathes, setting her mug beside Daphne’s on the night stand, and scooting closer to her on the bed. “I would be honored to be with you. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that would make me happier.” 

Daphne takes a moment to look up. When she does, her eyes are shiny and wet. “Then why didn’t you tell me, as soon as it happened? Why did you hide it from me?” 

“I thought you might be—well, disappointed,” Rose says, brushing tears from Daphne’s cheeks with her thumbs. “Don’t cry, dear heart.”

“Disappointed? Why would I—how could you think that?”

“Well—” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Daphne says petulantly, and Rose laughs as she leans in. 

“Yes, isn’t it?” she murmurs, and kisses her. 

 

Later, when they’re naked and curled up together in Rose’s bed, they drink their spiked hot cocoa. It’s long since gone cold, but still delicious.

“This is what I was hoping for,” Daphne whispers into Rose’s hair. “When I came here today.”

“What, Bailey’s?” Rose whispers back. “There’s plenty more where that came from.” 

Daphne giggles. “No, silly. You. Me. Bed.”

“Oh.” Rose turns, and kisses Daphne on the mouth, because she’s allowed to do that now and intends to do it as much as possible. “There’s plenty more where that came from, too.”


	4. nine ball & tammy: green

Nine Ball meets Lou through a friend of a friend of a friend. Usually, she makes a point of being as anonymous as is possible in her line of work; but with jobs come contacts, and more jobs, and more contacts. So she’s not really surprised when a willowy woman with perfectly messy blonde hair and a motorcycle jacket sits down beside her in the park, introduces herself, and says, “Ever cracked a museum?” 

She has, as a matter of fact—high art is a lucrative market—but a payoff of tens of millions is nothing to sneeze at, and she always enjoys a well-designed heist. 

She does a quick sweep of Lou’s footprint and double-checks with her network that she’s trustworthy. Assuming Lou’s partner, who Nine has yet to meet, is also solid, she’ll take the job. If it goes well, she’ll even offer to clean up Lou’s visa history. The latest green cards seem to be in order but the earlier ones are clearly faked, and if she were to get arrested, that would get her deported immediately. 

On a whole, she feels good about the job. 

 

Then she meets Debbie Ocean, and knows immediately that she’s in trouble. 

She suspects that many people have had the same reaction, though probably none for the same reason. Debbie is both a criminal genius and an extremely attractive woman, and Nine is sure that she breaks noses and hearts with equal ease; but Nine could still walk away from this job, no questions asked, and Debbie isn’t exactly her type. A little too much chaos lurking behind those dark eyes. 

No, the danger Debbie Ocean poses to her has less to do with her chances of getting shanked or strung along, and more to do with the forest-green mark, bright and obvious, patterned across the knuckles of her right hand. 

She spots it as soon as Debbie walks into the room, and the rush of adrenaline kicks in immediately, making her dizzy. Nine isn’t a gambler—too much risk, too little reward, it’s statistically a ridiculous hobby—but she would bet her life savings that the mark on Debbie’s hand matches the mark on Veronica’s forehead perfectly. The one that Nine gave her when she was born, and she touched the top of her head reverently, forgetting that her first touch would linger there forever. 

Veronica is the most important person in Nine’s life, always has been, always will be. 

With the possible, imminent exception of a person who Debbie once punched—how else would she have the mark on her knuckles?—who has the exact same soul color as Nine. 

“This what you talking about?” Nine shows Debbie the inside of the Met on her screen, and she’s projecting chill, but her mind is racing. “Bunch of vases?” 

Her soulmate. She tries to imagine her, but it’s impossible, despite her apparently being closer than ever before. She must be a criminal, if she’s close to Debbie, but Nine is sure that if she was working nearby, she’d have heard about it by now. Maybe someone Debbie used to work with? Who’s no longer in the city? 

Debbie fusses over her nickname—“We use real names around here,” she says, in the way of someone used to getting her way—and Lou drags her off for a lover’s spat. 

Good. Gives Nine time to think. 

She used to dream about this, when she was younger. What her soulmate would be like. How they’d meet. What kind of life they’d have together. But years went by, and she’s never had much time for romance, preferring to keep most of her connections strictly professional. 

She’s an introvert, anyway. A Saturday night with her laptop, her sister and a blunt is just fine by her—and truthfully, she doesn’t know if there’s space for another person in her life at this point. 

Debbie and Lou come back, and Nine distracts them by powering the warehouse on and off. It’s fun, showy, proves they need her. In reality, she’s still mulling the whole thing over. 

She doesn’t need them, that’s for sure. Does she want the job? Maybe. It’s the most interesting thing she’s been offered in a while. Not that that’s saying much. 

And she doesn’t even know if it’s a possibility, if it would ever come up or anything, but—does she want to meet her soulmate? Does she want the chance? 

She must be staring, because Lou clears her throat as she shrugs off her jacket—and there’s an identical forest-green mark on her upper left bicep. 

Someone close to both Debbie and Lou. It’s enough to make her want to turn down the job and skip town for a few months. Not that they aren’t nice and all, but this person, who is either a good friend or an archenemy of theirs—her _soulmate_ —could be a literal murderer, or in jail, or a police officer. 

There are just so many ways this could go wrong. 

“So,” Lou says. “What do you think?”

Nine has built her and Veronica’s lives carefully. She doesn’t do jobs that involve guns; she doesn’t even like working with people who carry guns. She avoids hard drugs, politics and anything that requires her to disclose her real name. 

Her work might be illegal, but it’s rarely risky, because at the end of the day, every day, she’s coming home to her sister. That’s all that matters. 

But it’s been twelve years since their parents died. Veronica is seventeen and getting ready to go to MIT in the fall. They’ll still see each other—Nine doesn’t want to embarrass her, but she’s going to insist on coming up at least once a month—and she’s still going to keep a low profile, but maybe she can afford to take on a little risk. Just a little.

If she’s going to do this, she decides, she’ll have to be cautious. Subtle. Observant. Her whole career revolves around the manipulation of information, and this particular fact could be explosive. 

She can’t ask about the forest-green mark outright: what if her soulmate is Debbie’s worst enemy, and she decides she has to take Nine out to prevent a possible betrayal, or some Romeo and Juliet kinda shit like that? And she can’t let Lou or Debbie or anyone else touch her, because they’ll put two and two together and it’ll all be over. 

No. She needs to find out without letting anyone else know, then go from there.

She takes a hit before answering. 

“Sure,” Nine says, blowing smoke out with the syllable. “I’m in.” 

 

She does her research before the job starts, of course. Much to her annoyance, Debbie keeps her notes on paper because she’s old-school and also has missed years of technological development. Lou, though, is far more up-to-date, and records the details of the plan carefully on her phone. It’s nothing too incriminating, but Nine makes a mental note to wipe all of their devices after the heist is over. 

That’s how she finds the list of women involved. One by one, she goes through their footprints. She’s done this plenty of times before, of course, but this time she finds herself interested for both professional and personal reasons. If Internet history is a glimpse into the soul, she’s going to be working with some characters.

Funnily enough, the one that holds her attention the longest is the most normal-seeming one. A woman with pale blonde hair posing with her two kids in cutesy Facebook photos, posting about green smoothies and vegan cupcakes and all that other Brooklyn shit, except she’s further out, in the suburbs. Nine almost begins to think that Lou must have had the wrong name, because there’s no way this woman has any kind of criminal skills. She’s probably never even jay-walked. 

But then she hacks deeper and deeper, and irregularities start popping up. The woman—Tammy—seems to have no employment record after her kids were born. So she’s a stay-at-home, yeah? But her kids have been registered at childcare centers since they were very young, and according to her electric bill, she’s out of the house most of the day. Nine checks her YMCA membership, her credit card, even the local Alcoholics Anonymous groups. Nothing.

Then she goes back to Lou’s notes. Tammy’s the fence. 

A memory sparks, somewhere in the back of her mind. A police report she read a year or two ago, about the hijacking of trucks along the New Jersey turnpike, and the suspicion that it was connected to the biggest stolen goods operation east of the Mississippi. 

She does a bit more digging, and though there’s nothing strong enough to serve as evidence, she’s pretty well convinced by the end of the day. 

Nine stares into the open, smiling face of the pretty woman in the Facebook photos. She has to hand it to Tammy: she’s impressed. 

 

The whole crew arrives in the warehouse. Nine sits back in her beanbag and watches from behind her sunglasses, mentally matching faces to histories, noting body language and nervous gestures, checking for concealed knives. Not that she thinks Lou would let anyone start shit, but it’s always good to be careful. 

Constance is more serious than she’d imagined given the number of cat videos she watches on YouTube; she’s funny and brash, but also watchful, never fully relaxed. Amita is sarcastic, even cutting, hardly the naive princess of the Disney movies she favors. Rose is—well, exactly as frazzled as she’d pictured, given her Google searches about deportation and tax fraud and what sewing supplies might be available in jail. 

The answer: very few. Fashion design lends itself well to weaponry. 

Tammy, though, is somehow both exactly and nothing like what she’d imagined. She looks just like her photos, sweaters and all, but the effect is far more imposing than Nine had ever thought a suburban white lady could be. She’s quick, smart, commanding, as befits her crime boss work, but she’s also on the phone with her kids constantly, helping to solve their small problems and soothe their whining. And on top of that, she’s dryly funny, with a deadpan that makes Nine snort involuntarily. 

Typically, when Nine is hiding in a corner with her shades and her laptop, she’s rendered almost invisible; and she thinks she’s been pretty subtle, watching Tammy move around the space, talking, moving boxes, taking notes. So she’s surprised when Tammy hangs up with the kids (after several rounds of “I love you, sweetheart. Yes, I’ll see you soon. I’ll talk to you soon. I love you”), heaves a sigh, and sits down on the couch opposite her. 

“Sorry for all the noise,” Tammy tells her. “The kids are at the separation anxiety stage.” 

“I don’t mind,” Nine says. And she doesn’t: she remembers Veronica when she was little, how she’d cling to her. How much worse it got when she found out their parents weren’t ever coming back. How it used to annoy her, but now that Veronica’s going to be leaving her, she thinks she’s starting to understand. 

“Do you have kids?” Tammy asks, then immediately covers her mouth. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that. I’m used to making small talk with women in the grocery store in Buttfuck, Nowhere.”

Nine laughs out loud. “It’s cool.” 

Part of her wants to tell her—to say, no, but she effectively raised her younger sister, so she knows what it’s like. But she’s not supposed to be making friends here. 

Tammy looks at her for a moment longer, then smiles and leans back on the sofa, tucking her legs up underneath her. She closes her eyes, and her whole face relaxes. 

And there it is, the most surprising thing about Tammy: she’s absolutely gorgeous. 

 

Preparations for the heist start coming together. Nine does her job, observes the others, doesn’t get too close. Everyone is highly professional, so it’s not like they all become best friends immediately, but as they settle in, routines develop. One of which is Thursday night drinks. 

It’s Lou’s night off from the club—though Nine knows that technically as the owner she never has to be there, it seems like she prefers to keep an eye on things in person—and the first week that they’re all living there, she comes home on Thursday night with a case of liquor bottles and a twinkle in her eye. 

“Shots, anyone?” she says, already pouring them out. “We have vodka, tequila, whiskey, rum…”

“What are we, teenagers?” Amita complains, but it’s barely out of her mouth before Constance is beside Lou and downing one, then two shots of vodka. 

“Is that the watered-down bottle?” Tammy calls from the couch. 

Debbie sips from a shot glass. Then she grins wide. “Nope. The good shit.” 

In the end, they all end up doing shots, even Nine. She goes for the rum, drinks a double shot down in one. Notices Tammy watching her swallow. 

And yeah, okay, if this was any other place and time, she’d have been on that _days_ ago. Tammy’s exactly the kind of put together that makes Nine want to take her apart: she looks good with her hair done perfectly, wool sweaters over collared shirts, but Nine is sure that she looks even better undone. And she wonders what it would take to get her to that point—what would she have to do to make her moan? Swear? Beg? 

However. Not only can she not fuck Tammy, she can’t flirt, either. No touching. That’s the rule. 

So Nine looks away, deliberately, and retreats into her usual beanbag, laptop perched on her legs. She’s a little buzzed, but keeps working, only half-listening to the conversation around her.

Which is why she doesn’t hear the debate over picking a game until everyone is settled around her and Debbie’s saying, “If you’re quiet, you’ll learn the rules so much faster.”

Nine looks up. Debbie is sitting in Lou’s lap, sharing the couch with Rose and Tammy, and Amita’s in an armchair with a margarita. Constance is sprawled on the floor. 

“Okay, mom, I’ll be good,” Constance mocks. Debbie rolls her eyes, and Lou looks at her fondly. 

“All right, then,” Lou starts. “It’s nothing fancy, just a take-off of Truth or Dare. Basically, the way it works is: whoever’s turn it is gets a truth and a dare from the others. You can either do the truth or dare, or you can take a shot. If you do both, the people who gave you the truth and the dare have to do shots instead.” 

“Oh, I got this,” Constance says. “Y’all are going down.”

“All right,” Tammy says. “You’re first, then.”

Nine keeps working amidst the whooping as Constance shares the details of her most recent fuck and prank-calls her mom’s restaurant, then laughs uproariously as Rose and Debbie each drink shots of whiskey. Lou tells the story of how she and Debbie met, which makes Amita misty-eyed, and Debbie gives Lou a lap dance with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. 

“Your first mistake was thinking I hadn’t done that before,” she says, winking at Amita, who pretends to gag. 

Then it’s Rose’s turn. She looks around at them all nervously. 

“Rose, Rose, Rose,” Constance says, in a tone that would be menacing if she wasn’t drunk. “Dare: act out your favorite sex position, on the person of your choice.”

Rose squeaks. 

“Truth,” Tammy says. “Have you ever designed lingerie, and if so, for who?” 

Blushing, but looking relieved, Rose tells them about a model she had a fling with, for whom she designed a set of brilliant magenta, barely-there nightwear. 

“I hope you got to take them off her, when they were done,” Lou says. 

A smile curves Rose’s lips, and she winks. They’re all giggly drunk, and Nine looks up just in time to see Tammy burst into laughter and lean into Rose, placing a hand on her bare knee. 

And then time stands still.

Because when Tammy removes her hand a moment later—Constance is already chanting her name, and Debbie has perked up, mischief clear in her eyes—there’s a forest-green smudge on Rose’s knee.

Nine’s green.

She takes a hit off her blunt just to have something to do with her hands, which are suddenly shaking. Because _holy fucking shit,_ it’s Tammy. 

Tammy’s green is on Debbie’s knuckles. Another realization hits her, and she groans internally. How could she be so dumb? Debbie and Lou’s red is clearly etched on Tammy’s cheekbone and hand, she noticed it the first time she saw her, and wondered at it—face marks aren’t so common. Stupid, that’s what she is. She should’ve figured this out days ago. 

Nine feels dizzy, her sudden proximity to this woman who is supposedly the love of her life combining with the weed and rum to make her feel weightless and ecstatic, so happy she could scream. Because Tammy is _beautiful,_ probably one of the most attractive people she’s ever met even with the prep-school look, and she’s brilliant and skilled and running a massive criminal operation so under the radar that even Nine hadn’t heard of her until this job, and she doesn’t carry a gun, Nine is sure she knows how to fight but she isn’t a murderer or a cop or anything, and she’s Nine’s _soulmate._

For so long, her heart has been a tiny island only big enough for her sister. She has a few friends, people she trusts, but no one she would say she loves; she fucks, doesn’t date, never brings people home. Her soulmarks are few and far between: Veronica’s opalescent sheen on her fingertip, her mother’s mahogany-brown on her ribs and father’s honey-amber on her back, a couple of friends and lovers patterned on her legs and arms. 

And now she has a soulmate. 

She gets exactly three seconds to be over the moon, until: 

“Tim Tam,” Debbie says. “Dare: send nudes to the last three people you texted.”

“I can’t do that!” Tammy protests. “My kids are numbers one and two!”

 _Oh. Right._

The kids.

The adorable kids, the perfect husband, the white picket fence and house in the suburbs. 

A rock plummets into Nine’s stomach and stays there. 

Tammy’s taken. Not just taken, she’s married and shacked up and responsible for young lives. It’s somewhat unusual to marry outside of soulmarks, but people do it and are perfectly happy. 

Nine might be a criminal, but she’s not an asshole. She’s not going to break up a family, a whole life built together, just because Tammy may or may not be her soulmate. 

(She is. Nine knows that without a shadow of a doubt. But still). 

Tammy’s telling some story and everyone is laughing, but Nine can’t hear anything over the absolute pounding clarity of the thoughts running through her head. 

She’s found her soulmate, and they can’t be together. 

Yet. Maybe in twenty years. But not now. 

And, moreover, she still can’t get close to any of the others, because she can’t risk them touching her, and she can’t want to tell them anything. Even though she suspects it’s too late, because despite only having known these people for a week, she’s voluntarily sitting through a game of Truth or Dare. Because she thinks Constance and Veronica could be best friends, because Amita makes her chai in the mornings and Lou mixes her rum punches at night, because Debbie plays a lot of Internet chess and so does Nine and she wants so badly to beat her ass, because she’d kill a man for Rose’s sake, because Tammy is her _literal fucking soulmate._

She can’t want this. Can’t want a family. 

Amita’s just finished propositioning some dude over Tinder, and drops her phone on the table dramatically. “Nine! You’re up, babe,” she says, tucking her legs underneath her and gesturing with her drink. 

“I’m not playing,” Nine says automatically. She stares at her computer screen as if she can make the whole situation—the game, the crew, her current devastating heartbreak—disappear. 

“Course you are,” Constance says. “Truth: what’s your real name?”

Nine scoffs, despite her misery. 

“Dare,” Lou says, and Nine lifts her eyes from the screen briefly to give her an _Et tu, Brute_ glare. “Fuck, marry, kill the three people to your left.” 

Nine sighs, but looks anyway. “Easy,” she says. “Fuck Constance, marry Lou, kill Debbie.” 

Constance’s cheer of “Hell yeah” is drowned out by Debbie going, “Hey, wait a minute!” Lou just smirks appreciatively. 

“You’re the most dangerous,” Nine explains patiently, and Debbie looks rather pleased. “And Lou has a steady source of relatively legal income, so she could provide for me if necessary.” 

“Plus you think I’m hot,” Constance says, with a winning smile. 

“Sure,” Nine says, eyes back on the screen. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” 

The game moves on, and after a few minutes, she closes her laptop and stands up, mumbling, “Need another drink” under her breath. She goes to the kitchen for a few minutes so it looks like she’s doing something, then pads quietly up the stairs to her room. The noise from the living room is raucous, and she doubts anyone notices.

Nine closes the door behind her, and sighs. Without letting herself think too much, she strips off, crawls into bed and puts on Netflix. Something mindless and happy, to help her fall asleep. 

She cries a little in the dark and quiet of her room until the combination of weed and exhaustion overtakes her, and she falls into a dreamless sleep. 

 

The next day, Nine decides that this changes nothing. She was never planning to get close to any of them. If she pursued this—this soulmate thing—it could turn her whole life upside down. She should be grateful to get the money and get out. It’s just a job. 

She doesn’t even tell her sister, even though she tells her everything else. Debbie might have sworn them all to secrecy, but Veronica always comes first, and besides, it’s good to have a back up plan. She’s a genius, is her sister, and the time might come when they need her on their side. 

It’s not that she doesn’t think she’d be sympathetic. Veronica’s always liked the idea of soulmates, and she might be eight years younger but she has the emotional intelligence of a grown ass woman, probably even more so than Nine herself. 

No. The whole thing just—feels shameful, is all. How much she wants someone to love. 

It’s lonely, holding this close to her chest. But Nine is accustomed to loneliness. Fuck, she thrives on it. 

She can handle one more disappointment. 

 

Work and weed keep her pretty well distracted most of the time. She doesn’t have to interact directly with Tammy much; some days she doesn’t even see her. That helps—lifts the weight on Nine’s chest, just a bit—right up until the next time they’re in the house at the same time, and a jolt goes through her entire body when she lays eyes on Tammy. Like she’s fucking thirteen years old again. 

Avoiding the others is easier than expected. Other than family dinner, as Constance has taken to calling it, she’s not required to be present unless she’s working, and even then she often communicates by phone. She sits in the corner, doesn’t talk much. She’s not sure if they think she’s aloof or just a loner, but they respect her need for physical space, which is a blessing. 

The one time Rose tries to touch her face, saying something about a singer she resembles, she jerks back and feels her jaw set, angry; but before she can untangle her complicated emotions and try to explain, Rose is already apologizing, voice soft. 

“I should’ve asked. Sorry, love,” she says, and Nine looks for resentment or condescension in her eyes, but all she sees is sincerity. She just nods, jaw still tight, and they move on. 

It’s—nice. The way they take care of her. 

Additionally, of course—and she really tries not to be bitter about this, but it’s tough—the others are distracted by their own soulmates. Lou and Debbie might be head bitches in charge when it comes to running heists, but when they’re focusing on each other, it’s like there’s little cartoon hearts floating around their heads. She’s seen Debbie tear up and Lou blush, and they’re not even intimidating anymore. 

Not that she would admit that they ever were. She has a reputation to maintain. 

Meanwhile, Amita and Constance finally got together—Nine saw that coming like a million years ago but whatever—and now they’re so wrapped up in each other that Constance has forgotten to act like an annoying younger sister to Nine, which shouldn’t hurt but kind of does. And it’s not like she and Amita were close, but they did spend a lot of time rolling their eyes at each other when the others were being ridiculous, because they’re like the two most sane people on the whole team. 

To be fair, she has no real idea what’s up with Rose—she hides in her room and runs around like a chicken with its head cut off and Nine loves her but man, she’s weird—though she’s guessing that gay panic figures into it somewhere, because hello, doesn’t it always? 

She is happy for them all. Somewhere. Deep down. 

Assuming there’s a part of her that’s deep enough down that it can forget about watching Tammy around the apartment, marveling at her capability, her intelligence, the way she juggles Debbie and the heist and her kids and her own massive criminal empire without so much as a hair coming loose. The way she looks in those skirts, the way she might look out of them. The way Nine’s heart skips a beat when she sees her, and the way Tammy sometimes looks at her as though she has the same effect on her—like a shiver goes down her spine every time their eyes meet. 

If she can forget about that, in some small corner of her body, then yes. She can be happy for Lou and Debbie and Amita and Constance and everyone else who gets their perfect honeymoon ending. 

 

They play Truth or Dare again the night before the heist. They’re all jittery despite their preparations, maybe because of them; there’s nothing left to do but wait, and Nine knows that if they were left to their own devices right now, half of them would get caught up in their own heads and go crazy, and half of them—well, maybe just Constance and Lou—would externalize the stress and probably end up breaking something. 

So Debbie gets out the shot glasses, and Rose makes up some weird but tasty punch, and they all get drunk as fast as they can without guaranteeing awful hangovers tomorrow. 

Nine’s got her laptop open as always, playing chess on autopilot, and trying to pretend to herself that she’s nervous about the job, because it’s easier than thinking about how beautiful Tammy looks with wisps of hair curling around her face, cheeks glowing and eyes warm. Or about how empty her apartment is going to be with Veronica gone, how still. The pool place and her usual work will keep her busy, but she’ll be so, so alone. 

From watching movies about college dorms and sororities and everything, she thought she’d hate that kind of communal living. How noisy and chaotic and messy it was. But she’s been living with six other women for a month now, and it is quite possibly the happiest she’s ever been. 

“Nine!” Constance yells. 

“What!” Nine yells back.

“Dare: do a shot off someone’s tits!” 

Much as she would love to, it’s out of the question. She briefly wonders if anyone’s ever gotten a soulmark on their tongue before. Probably. She’d look pretty silly, having a green tongue for the rest of her life. 

It’d be worth it. 

“Truth,” Tammy says. “What do you want most?” 

The first thought that comes to her mind is: _you._ Which is dangerous on so many levels, she doesn’t even want to think about it. 

She opens her mouth, and blurts: “A family.” 

They make eye contact, and Tammy nods at her like she understands, like she can see inside of Nine’s head and knows how many times she’s thought about Tammy and her, about mothering Tammy’s kids, about Tammy bonding with Veronica, about holding a little baby, a baby of their own—

Nine reaches blindly for a shot, tips it down. “Rose,” she slurs. “You’re up.” 

 

All things considered, she has maybe the most chill job out of anyone on the day of the actual heist. She’s the only one not pretending to be someone else, and while she is in charge of monitoring everything and coordinating the handoff, she can lounge back in the van, paint her nails, smoke a blunt. 

There’s the moment of stress when the busboys are chatting, but Tammy resolves that, and then it’s just the countdown as Lou and Debbie steal more shit and Amita makes jewelry, and Nine gets ready. 

Her makeup’s already done, so she just puts on the red dress that fits her perfectly, tries not think about Tammy picking out this dress for her—maybe thinking about her in this dress, maybe thinking about other things, too—sweeps her hair back, and heads into the event of the year. 

Constance slips her the diamond hand piece as she enters through a back door, and she spends just a few minutes looking around. Despite having access to every camera in the museum, she wanted to experience the atmosphere for herself. Put on a pretty dress, be the belle of the ball, etc. The lights are sparkling and bright, and it’s intoxicating, seeing and being seen. She’s so used to hiding, she almost forgot what that was like.

She’s still an introvert, though, and her job depends on anonymity, so she doesn’t wait around for people to start taking photos or asking who she is. She finds the front staircase, begins descending it—

—and then her eyes find Tammy’s, at the bottom of the stairs. 

Or more accurately, her eyes find Tammy’s, which are currently sweeping down from her hair to her lips to her tits to her hips, and she knows she looks good but _god,_ the hunger in Tammy’s eyes. The way she looks up at her, hands clenching at her sides, like it’s taking all of her willpower not to reach for Nine and dip her into a movie-star kiss. 

And Nine is good at hiding her feelings, deliberately hasn’t added up the clues for a long time, but she’s not in the habit of lying to herself. She knows that Tammy has been watching her, in the quiet moments of Lou’s house, because sometimes she looks up and catches her, and they hold eye contact for a few seconds too long. She makes Tammy laugh a deep-belly laugh, which no one else except Debbie can do. Tammy relaxes around her. 

So yes, okay, this soulmate thing. It’s real. They want each other. Tammy wants her. 

But that doesn’t make it okay to break up Tammy’s family. Tammy might be attracted to her, might even like her—she refuses to think that Tammy might love her, it’s too soon, it’s too much—but she has kids, a happy, stable marriage. 

Nine won’t be the one that takes that away from her. 

Back when she’d been deciding whether to take the job and risk finding her soulmate, and asked herself, _What’s the worst that can happen?,_ she’d imagined getting shot, or thrown in jail. 

She didn’t think about falling in love. 

 

Amita and Constance, she saw coming from miles away. Rose and Daphne? That catches her a little off-guard. 

It makes sense once she thinks about it, she supposes—the artist and her muse. Classic. 

And it completes them, in a way that no one fully understands except for her. Not only are they Ocean’s Eight, the team that pulled off the most audacious heist in history, but they’re a houseful of soulmates, of couples who would not have found each other were it not for everyone else. In a way, they’re all soulmates. They belong together. 

But she doesn’t. Or she can’t. Not really. Not yet. 

Tammy is going to leave, and she has to, too. 

She resolves not to tell anyone until after everything else is settled, because everyone’s spirits are high and she doesn’t want to be the one to pull them down. So she gets a few more weeks with them while Becker is trapped and arrested. A few more weeks of Truth or Dare, family dinners, sitting in the corner and watching everyone, before she leaves for good. 

 

And then the thing is finally, actually done. Daphne’s moved into Rose’s room with her. Becker is going to jail. The money is secured in offshore accounts, millions and millions for each of them. 

They did it.

The party goes on all night. Lou breaks out even fancier bottles, Nine contributes some really good weed, Debbie picks the records, and they all get fucking trashed. They play party games until they can’t focus anymore, then they switch to Spin the Bottle—which Nine has the presence of mind to withdraw from; she just watches hazily, more than a little turned on, while all her friends kiss each other—and then, when Lou and Debbie get distracted by each other’s faces again, Daphne and Amita put on Britney Spears and dance around crazily, knocking things over and laughing like maniacs. 

At some point someone puts on a Disney movie. Nine isn’t surprised that Amita and Lou and Rose cry, but it shakes her to her fucking core when Constance sheds a tear. 

Around five a.m., Nine stirs suddenly in her beanbag, and wakes up to find the party over. Debbie and Lou are asleep curled up on the couch together, while Constance and Amita have just passed out on the floor. She vaguely remembers Rose and Daphne going off to bed earlier. Tammy probably did too, she figures. 

She’s exhausted and a little buzzed, and she should go to bed, too, but for some reason she feels wide awake. Warm and sort of excited and good. She looks out the window. The sky is pale gray with pre-morning light and completely clear. Perfect for watching the sun rise.

Nine makes her way up to the roof, sits in a lawn chair. The air’s cool, a little breezy, so she peels off her sweatshirt to feel it on her bare shoulders. Stares out over the city as red washes over the horizon and paints the sky a fiery orange, sending streaks out to the fading night. 

Just as the sun’s about to rise—she can see it peeking over the trees, right there—she hears a voice from the door.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Nine doesn’t even turn her head, just lets the smile curve the corners of her lips. “Nah. Too beautiful out here for sleep.”

Tammy moves from the door onto the porch, and stands beside Nine for a second, gazing out. “You’re so right.” 

Then she sits down on the arm of her chair, slinging her arm around Nine’s shoulders casually; and Nine is too tired and high and happy to remember why that’s a bad idea, so she leans into her side. 

“Do you do this often?” Tammy asks.

“No,” Nine says. “Just sometimes when I want to think a little.”

“What are you thinking about now?”

“Nothing,” Nine says, honestly. “Just feeling happy.”

“Yeah,” Tammy says. Nine can hear her smiling. “Me too.” 

They watch the sun rise in silence, until it’s lifted far enough into the sky that a whole rainbow is there, tracing pink orange gold into blues and purples. Lighting up the city. 

Then Tammy shakes herself, lifting her arm up and stretching. “Well, I should probably—” 

And it’s like a bolt of lightning hits Nine: the silence of Tammy seeing the mark on Nine’s shoulder and the mark on her inner bicep, and putting two and two together. The reason she shouldn’t have let Tammy touch her. _Fuck. Fuck._

“Fuck,” Nine says out loud, looking up at Tammy, and Tammy looks down at her and her eyes are darker than she’s ever seen them, dark and determined and—

—and then suddenly Tammy has slid off the arm of the chair and into her lap, straddling her, and she’s got one hand on Nine’s shoulder where she’s left a forest-green mark (a soulmark, from Nine’s soulmate) and the other hand in her hair, and her lips are so soft and warm and sweet that Nine melts into her, wrapping her arms around her, holding her close. 

They stay like that for a while, kissing until they can’t breathe, then resting their foreheads together, then kissing more. The sun is rising in the sky and Nine has the love of her life in her lap and everything is absolutely perfect. She never wants it to end.

Finally, though, Tammy breaks away for air and buries her face in Nine’s neck, and giggles. Nine thinks it’s probably the most endearing sound she’s ever heard. 

“I just—” Tammy says, still laughing against her skin. “I’ve been wanting to do that for such a long time, and you’re—we’re—” 

“Yeah,” Nine says softly. “Me too.” 

Tammy hears something in her tone, and raises her head to look her in the eye. Nine can practically see the gears working in her head. Damn Tammy’s criminal instincts. 

“Wait a minute,” Tammy says, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “You don’t sound surprised. You didn’t—did you _know?”_

Nine considers lying, but it’s like six a.m. and they just made out for what felt like years, and she’s so tired of hiding. “Yeah. I did.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I—” Her voice catches in her throat, and she swallows hard. “Well, you’re—married.”

Tammy smiles at her. “Yeah, but—”

“No, you’re—you’re married, and you have kids, and you’re happy. You have such a good life and I didn’t want to ruin that for you, you deserve that, you didn’t—”

“Nine, listen—”

“No, I—” Nine braces against the arms of the chair and makes to stand up. Tammy scoots off of her, and then Nine’s looking down at her, and every bone in her body is resisting what she’s about to say but she has to say it. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I’m gonna go.”

And Nine turns to go back inside, but before she can move an inch, Tammy is there in front of her again, brandishing her left hand in her face. 

Her ring finger is bare.

“For a hacker, you’re not very observant,” Tammy says quietly.

“What?”

“I stopped wearing my ring weeks ago.”

“But—why?” 

“I’m getting a divorce,” Tammy says, and all of the air leaves Nine’s body, just like that. She actually has to sit down on the arm of the chair to catch her breath. Then Tammy steps closer so that she’s standing between Nine’s legs, and wow, that is really not helping her get a hold of things.

“We were too young when we got married,” Tammy says. “We don’t love each other; we’re better off as friends. I didn’t tell anyone except Debbie because it felt, I don’t know, private.” 

Gently, she places her hands under Nine’s shoulders and tugs her up until they’re standing chest to chest, lips barely a breath apart. 

“You’re the only one I want,” Tammy whispers against her mouth, and then they’re kissing again, and Nine isn’t letting go of her again, not now, not ever.


	5. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was such a joy to write, i couldn't resist adding a fluffy end. thank you all for the love.

Lou is not usually one for fidgeting. Years of running cons has taught her how to appear calm and collected, even—especially—when adrenaline is racing through her body. But on today of all days, she finds herself obsessively adjusting the pink rose on her lapel, messing with her black bowtie, touching her hair, which is swept back into a knot at the back of her head. Doing and undoing the single button on her white wedding tux jacket. 

When she was younger, she’d always thought that marriage was merely a formality—a legal and social contract, nothing more. That if a relationship was already loving and strong, there was nothing marriage could add to it beyond a piece of paper and inheritance rights. Which she still thinks is true, to some degree.

But. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the heart-stopping sight of Debbie on one knee, holding a ring with a diamond that they’d stolen together, looking up at her with a trembling smile and shining eyes. All she’d managed was “Lou, baby” before Lou was on her knees too, kissing the tears from her cheeks and the words from her lips, and sighing, “Yeah, honey, yes, of course” into her mouth as Debbie kissed her like her life depended on it. And maybe it did, right then.

There’s a knock at the door, and Tammy peeks in. She smiles. “Hey. She’s finally here. You ready?” 

“I was born ready,” Lou says, looking herself over in the mirror one last time before crossing to the door. 

“You look lovely,” Tammy says. She gives her a quick hug, careful not to crush the rose. “Let’s go.” 

 

Amita, as the unofficial romantic of the group, had declared that Debbie and Lou were not permitted to spend the night before their wedding together. This came around the same time as Rose’s announcement that she would be designing their wedding outfits, and Constance’s announcement that she would select the venue secretly and take them there only on the day of, and yes, of course it would be perfect, who did they take her for. 

As it turned out, there were very few decisions the brides-to-be were allowed to make for themselves. Which was fine by Lou, frankly. She wasn’t all that interested in wedding planning, and it kept the crew busy, which meant she got more time alone with Debbie and their bed, and bathroom, and balcony, and wall. 

She suspects that their found family’s sudden interest in flowers and dresses and cake recipes had had more to do with their own soulmates than her and Debbie, too. Nothing’s been declared yet—none of the others have been together as long as them, after all—but with soulmates, it rarely takes long. 

Rose and Daphne are taking it slow, keeping it on the down low for a few months so they can bask in each other’s company and prepare for the inevitable crush of media attention that will come with the revelation of their soulmarks. 

Before she and Amita got together, during a particularly vicious game of Truth or Dare, Constance had said that marriage was for dummies and that she couldn’t imagine ever getting married. But Lou had a feeling even then that she was drinking away her sorrows, and now she’s seen the way she puts an arm around Amita’s waist protectively when her mother calls, the speculative way she eyes Amita’s photos of her nieces and nephews sometimes when she thinks no one’s looking. Amita might be the team’s unofficial romantic, but Constance would do anything for her, which makes her a sap by proximity.

And Tammy and Nine—well, they have to wait for the divorce papers to go through, and they want the kids to get used to Nine before they move in together, et cetera. But Veronica has already started calling Tammy “mom” and telling her sister to put a ring on it, so Lou thinks that’s a pretty sure deal in a year or two. 

Lou glances at Tammy’s profile as she drives. It’s astonishing how much more relaxed she looks. Lou hadn’t even realized how often Tammy’s jaw was clenched until she actually started smiling regularly. 

The whole team had been downstairs having coffee when she and Nine had finally come down from the roof, dizzy from joy and lack of sleep, lips swollen, soulmarks bright and proud on their bare skin. Debbie, ever eagle-eyed, was the first to notice. She was on her feet in an instant. 

“Tammy,” she’d said, hushed. “Is that—”

“Yeah,” Tammy had said, looking up at Nine. They were pressed together, arms looped around each other’s waists, and Nine was smiling so shyly, like she couldn’t believe it was really real. 

Lou had gotten it the quickest. Why Nine had never let any of them touch her, how she must’ve known from the start; and just thinking about her sitting alone in her beanbag this whole time watching them all fall in love was enough to get her off her chair and wrapping her arms around the both of them in a moment.

And then they were all there, the whole team, crushing the last pair of soulmates in a giant hug that left marks, passionate, colorful, loving marks, all over Nine, and it was official. They were complete. 

 

They arrive twenty minutes later, on a nondescript street in Queens. Lou glances around, a little confused. 

“Is this—it?”

“Up here,” Tammy says, looking down at her phone, then leading her down the sidewalk to a tiny old church with ivy covering its walls and crumbling stones. Tammy opens the door and steps through, holding the door for Lou, but all she can do is stare.

The church is small, but it’s filled with magnificent stained-glass windows, which reflect the hundreds of candles placed all around. Constance, Amita, Rose, Daphne and Nine form a semi-circle around the altar. And then there’s Debbie, in a long, elegant black wedding dress, a single pink rose tucked in her tumbling hair. 

Taking a deep breath, Lou steps into the church, and walks down the aisle. She takes Debbie’s hands when she reaches her, lips curling automatically into a smile. 

“Hey,” she says. 

“Hey yourself,” Debbie says. “You look—god. You look amazing.” 

“You’re one to talk.” 

“Enough, lovebirds,” Constance says, stepping forward importantly. “It’s my turn to talk.” 

 

Honestly, Lou doesn’t remember most of the ceremony. She’s too busy looking at Debbie, the love of her life. Her soon-to-be wife. They’re going to have to file taxes together, and write wills, and all that boring shit.

She can’t wait. 

True to form, their vows are short and to the point. Debbie says, “Loving you is the only thing I have ever done in my life that really, truly matters, and I’m going to love you forever, okay?”

“Forever?” Lou says, and it’s meant to be a joke, but her voice cracks because she’s this close to crying.

“Forever,” Debbie says, her voice so fiercely serious that Lou does cry then, tears streaking down her face and probably smearing her makeup, dammit. She’s forgotten everything she intended to say, her nice scripted speech. But that’s fine, because she’s had these words since she was eighteen and in love with a girl she met in an alley. Since the first time Debbie took her in.

“Deborah Ocean,” she says. “You have been my home, my heart, for—years and years now. You are the only home I’ve ever had, and the only one I want, and—” 

Her vision is blurring, but she looks around at their team. 

“You gave me a family,” she says. “A _family._ Do you know—how badly I’ve wanted—” 

Debbie’s hands are on her cheeks, wiping away the tears, and she murmurs, “Yeah, baby, I know.”

“I love you,” Lou says. “I love you so much. Can we kiss now?” 

“Yeah,” Constance says, voice shaking only slightly. “Uh—by the power vested in me by—whatever, just kiss.” 

And then Lou Miller is kissing her wife, the cheers of their friends in her ears, and the future is warm and solid in her arms.


End file.
